Articles 2023

For lawyers looking to become more effective in the workplace, a new study suggests that the answer may be found in a practice not typically covered in law school: mindfulness.

Restrictive covenants, particularly non-compete clauses, are regular features in franchise agreements. When franchise agreements often span many years, facts and circumstances may change with a franchisor’s reorganization, expansion of the franchise system, assignment of franchises, and any other number of factors that change the landscape within which the franchise agreement must be interpreted.

Following are the summaries for this past week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The Construction Lien Amendment Act was passed in December 2017 and substantively changed the Construction Lien Act, now the Construction Act . Its primary purposes were to: (i) modernize the existing Construction Lien Act; (ii) provide prompt payment legislation throughout Ontario; and (iii) introduce adjudication provisions for disputes arising in the course of a contract.

A lawyer shares her technology practice tips.

The Supreme Court of Canada recently held, in its highly anticipated decision in Telus Communications Inc. v. Wellman, that business customers of Telus cannot avoid the terms of a mandatory arbitration clause by joining a class action with consumers who are not bound by the arbitration clause.

In this global marketplace, where business across borders has become commonplace, in litigation it is to be expected that some parties or key witnesses may reside outside Ontario. In this article the author describes the tools available to obtain evidence outside Ontario, and the criteria that apply to each of them.

Topics covered for this week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario included annulling a bankruptcy where the bankrupt was not really insolvent and appeared only to try to avoid paying on a judgment, damages for breach of an agreement of purchase and sale of land, discoverability of a claim for negligent tax advice (“appropriate means”), and amending pleadings.

Highlights from the May 14, 2019 Brown Bag Lunch, including a discussion on the recent Court of Appeal decision in Quaggiotto v. Quaggiotto, the taxation of power of attorney fees and estate administration issues.

Bill C-86, the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, SC 2018, c 27, received Royal Assent on December 13, 2018, and provides for certain amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act (“CBCA”), which will come into force on June 13, 2019.