Articles 2025

Find out more about the new changes to the Ontario Business Registry.

Our guest star for November's "Featured Member" series is Daniel Hirsh, current chair of the Business Law Executive and a sole practitioner at Hirsh Law in Toronto, Ontario. We thank Daniel for his participation and hope you enjoy getting to know him!

Corporate annual return filing changes – an update.

On June 29, 2021, the British Columbia Supreme Court held for the first time that the Crown’s power to take up lands for industrial development under a treaty could violate First Nation treaty rights if industrial development resulted in the First Nation no longer being able to meaningfully exercise their treaty rights. The Yahey v. British Columbia decision may have significant impacts on industrial developments involving forestry, oil and gas, and renewable energy in Canadian provinces.

In Kirsh, the Divisional Court recently considered the principles applicable to the analysis of preferability and abuse of process in the context of parallel national class actions. It confirmed what the class actions bar has known for a long time: there is no panacea for the phenomenon of parallel and duplicative national class actions commenced in different Canadian jurisdictions, particularly when the overlapping proceedings are commenced by different plaintiffs and different class counsel.

The market for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has exploded over the last year. Although this is an exciting new area for business, it is riddled with potential legal issues that must be properly understood by those who wish to operate in the marketplace. One of these issues pertains to the application of copyright laws to NFTs. Depending on the copyright ownership structure surrounding a given NFT, its use in the course of business may open the door to lawsuits rather than profits.

The UK Supreme Court just released its long-awaited judgment in Lloyd v Google, deciding whether England’s representative action rule can be used for the purposes of a class action. The UK Supreme Court’s interpretation of the representative rule is more revolutionary than appearances would suggest.

The 20th Annual Charter of Rights and Freedoms Conference hosted by the Constitutional Civil Liberties and Human Rights (“CCLHR”) Section of the Ontario Bar Association (“OBA”) took place on October 5, 2021 via webcast. This article summarizes the Conference’s Year in Review presentation, the four panel discussions, and the Keynote Address.

In this year’s Annual Update on Judicial Review, held on October 18, 2021, the Honourable Justice David Stratas, Federal Court of Appeal, and Professor Paul Daly, University of Ottawa, discussed recent cases and developments in the administrative law jurisprudence across Canada. The event was chaired by Dina Awad and Jillian Siskind of the OBA Administrative Law Section Executive. This summary of the lively discussion is categorized into six themes, following the structure and flow of the event.