Congratulations to April Gougeon, Bill Hearn and Ronald Davis for winning a Mondaq 2023 Thought Leader Award for their article: What’s Ahead in 2023 for Privacy and Cybersecurity Law. The award showcases top authors based on readership across 15 countries and multiple areas of law.

On April 27th David Thiel will share his perspective on what condominium boards need to know when engaging engineering consultants.

This Community Association Institute – Canada webinar will cover the effective maintenance and restoration of condominium buildings and how it can be challenging for condominium boards to determine when to engage these consultants. The decision-making process involves various considerations, including the necessity for a designed scope of work, the need for a building permit, and ensuring that the service contractor’s quote covers the right equipment. To explore these matters, our panel of industry engineering experts will discuss the optimal threshold for engaging engineering consultants and provide guidance on properly defining the scope of work. Furthermore, the panel will address some crucial engineering hot topics such as the aging of pipe liners and their failure as well as incomplete expansion systems installed for fan coil hydronic risers. For more information and to register click here.

Calling all 2SLGBTQ+ law students who will be applying to recruits in Toronto in 2023! We hope you’ll join us at this year’s in-person Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Firm Hop. The Canadian Association of LGBTQ2S+ Lawyers is proud to be organizing the 2023 Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Firm Hop, taking place from Monday, March 13, to Friday March 17, 2023. Students are able to choose which firms they’re interested in touring (each firm tour lasts 1 hour) but must choose a minimum of 7 (with the maximum number of available firm tours being 26).

Alexander Evangelista will Co-Chair the Ontario Bar Association’s “Your First Trial” program on March 3, 2023. The program features prominent litigators such as Fogler, Rubinoff LLP’s Martine Garland, who will demystify the civil trial process and share their experience and insights on the fundamentals of trial preparation and technique.

Congratulations to our Partners on being recognized as leading lawyers in the 2023 Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory.

Each lawyer was selected based upon a comprehensive annual survey, ongoing since 1994. They are acknowledged as leaders in their respective fields and are prominent lawyers in their practice areas. 

Workplace policies that ensure businesses can continue in the face of viral threats have become imperative. Diana Saturno will be part of a Lancaster House Publishing employment law panel discussing infection control and prevention measures as well as flexible working arrangements.

Luciana Andrade co-presented at the NALP Virtual Canadian Diversity Summit as part of the Building a Sense of Belonging panel. Luciana discussed how we can create an inclusive environment for internationally trained lawyers in Canada. 

Martine Garland is co-chairing this OBA program on the top appeals from the Courts in 2022. All litigators, whether in-house or external counsel, will benefit from this update on some of the Court’s top decisions, and their impact on the law.

With the ongoing crypto drama of 2022, and the spectacular blow-up of Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX, the financial world is screaming for regulators to do “something.” Rick Moscone shares his perspective on this hot topic and the need for DeFi regulations with the CBA’s The National magazine. Click here to read Rick’s perspective in the article “Clarity, Please”

In the first decision of its kind, Fogler, Rubinoff lawyers Justin Jakubiak and Adam Varro were successful in obtaining a cost award against the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council (OMVIC), Ontario’s motor vehicle sales regulator.

The application was made further to our client’s successful appeal to the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT) of OMVIC’s proposal to refuse his salesperson’s licence on account of alleged improper conduct as a sales manager of a large franchise dealership.  In her decision, the presiding member acknowledged the high burden to achieve a cost award but found it unreasonable that “the Registrar continued the hearing to completion (a startling 13 days of evidence), despite the case…showing multiple weaknesses early on and throughout the hearing.” The presiding member further found that OMVIC acted unreasonably by failing to entertain numerous offers to settle made before and during the hearing. 

Costs are rarely awarded at the LAT, and we are unaware of another decision where they have been awarded against a regulator. This decision serves as an important precedent for future instances where a regulator unreasonably pursues its case and in doing so causes unnecessary expense and prejudice to an applicant’s ability to participate in their industry of choice. The full decision can be found here.

Irani and Khan v. Registrar, Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, 2002, 2022 ONLAT MVDA 13303/13307Download