Sept 1, 2017
In August 2017, Listed published its choices for the Supreme Court of Canada judgments from the previous 12 months that would be most significant to its listed company readership. Compiled by Jim Middlemiss after consultation with top Canadian lawyers and legal observers, the cases on the list cover a broad range of issues – from a narrowing of the circumstances in which “rectification” is available to amend deal documents to the treatment of take-it-or-leave-it standard form contracts by courts. Osler partner and litigator, Mahmud Jamal, acted as intervener in a pair of cases featured in the Listed article: Canada (Attorney General) v. Chambre des notaires du Québec and Lizotte v. Aviva Insurance Company of Canada. The Court in these cases addressed the issue of the scope and applicability of solicitor-client privilege and litigation privilege. In the first case, the Court held that Québec notaries are the equivalent of corporate lawyers and that solicitor-client privilege therefore extends to them, while in Lizotte, it found that litigation privilege protects documents and communications prepared for litigation.
In the article, Mahmud explains that the rulings are significant because “they are decisions from a relatively new generation of Supreme Court judges affirming the robust protections of solicitor-client privilege and enhancing the protections of litigation privilege.”
For further details about all of the Supreme Court of Canada judgments on Listed’s compilation of most significant cases, read Jim Middlemiss’s article “Rulings of engagement” from August 4, 2017.