Cross-Border & Canadian Business Blog
Exploring cross-border business opportunities and trends.
What happens when a party claims it misunderstood the legal consequences of a contract, but had in fact obtained legal advice at the time it was executed? The short answer is that it can result in a complete loss of solicitor-client privilege. The Ontario Court of Appeal addressed this issue in One York Street Inc. …
Continue reading “Privilege at Risk: How Pleading Lack of Legal Understanding Can Backfire”
A recent decision from Ontario’s highest court has yielded an unusual result regarding Ontario’s ever-evolving summary judgment regime. Typically, motions for partial summary judgment are difficult to advance and, in many cases, do not proceed to scheduling given their low likelihood of success. However, Kotsopoulos v. Toronto (City), 2026 ONCA 121 (“Kotsopoulos”) raised an unusual …
Continue reading “Partial Summary Judgment Remains Exceptional: Lessons from Kotsopoulos V. Toronto”
For spouses who find themselves named as co-defendants, a recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice is a warning about the limits of spousal privilege. A convenient plot device in law dramas such as Law and Order, spousal privilege protects spouses from disclosing communications between them. However, in Ontario, that privilege is limited …
Continue reading “Spousal Privilege: ‘Til Litigation Do Us Part”
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision in Ontario Securities Commission v. Bridging Finance Inc. et al. (for the purposes of this article, the “Cerieco decision”) arose out of a claims process in the receivership related to the collapse of Bridging Finance Inc. While the broader litigation and regulatory context was complex, the portion of …
Continue reading “Lending to Limited Partnerships: Lessons from the Cerieco Decision”
A recent decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal is a good reminder that courts won’t bail you out just because a tax plan didn’t go as expected. In Pyxis Real Estate Equities Inc. v. Canada, 2025 ONCA 65, the Court made it clear: if your documents match the plan – even if that plan …
Continue reading “Tax Planning Misstep? Ontario Court of Appeal Says No to Rectification”
In the recently released decision of Ross v. Luypaert, 2025 ONCA 236, the Ontario Court of Appeal reaffirmed that a co-owner of real estate can compel the sale of jointly owned property under the Partition Act. The only exception is where the opposing party can prove that such an application amounts to malicious, vexatious, or …
Continue reading “The Partition Act: A Powerful Tool for Resolving Jointly Owned Property Disputes”
The question of when a lawsuit can be commenced in Ontario seems pretty straightforward – in general, a plaintiff has two years from the date when the basis for a claim is (or should have been) discovered. It sounds simple enough, and oftentimes, it is. However, a few recent decisions from the Ontario Court of …
In 2021, the self-proclaimed “Crypto King,” along with an associate, paid a $500,000 deposit to purchase a commercial real estate property to store their exotic car collection. The “Crypto King,” Aiden Pleterski, had received more than $40 million from investors who thought they were investing in cryptocurrency. The investors had never authorized Mr. Pleterski to …
Continue reading “Court of Appeal Decides Fate of “Crypto King” $500,000 Deposit”
Most people likely understand the risks of trying to rely on an oral agreement to vary the terms of a commercial lease. Nonetheless, parties often get into disputes over whether there was an oral agreement that varied the terms of a lease. A recent Ontario decision, Parkland Corporation v. Caledon Fuels Inc.[1], confirms the risk …
Continue reading “Commercial Lease Modifications: Why Oral Agreements Don’t Hold Up in Court”
Dissent rights, entrenched in most provincial corporate statutes, grant shareholders the power to contest significant corporate changes and compel the corporation to repurchase their shares at a fair market value. Central to the enforcement of these rights is the statutory framework, which can result in either an amicable valuation agreement or a court-mandated determination of …
Continue reading “Dissent Rights and Shareholder Agreements – New Ruling Provides Guidance”