Canadian Fraud Law

Canadian Fraud Law

Commentary, News and Updates

Deferred Prosecution Agreements are coming to Canada. Are you prepared?

Peter MacKayChristopher BurkettJohn Pirie By Peter MacKay, Christopher Burkett and John Pirie on Posted in Investigations & Compliance

Join Baker Mckenzie’s global practitioners on Thursday, June 14 for a Deferred Prosecution Agreement Roundtable to gain important insights on:

  • The impact that Bill C-74 will have on corporate criminal law in Canada;
  • How the Canadian DPA system (which will be known as the Remediation Agreement Regime) will work in practice and how it will impact the Integrity Regime;
  • The critical lessons learned from negotiating DPAs in other jurisdictions;
  • Strategies for self-disclosure and dealing with parallel multinational investigations, multiple enforcement agencies, and global settlement negotiations; and
  • Designing compliance programs and conducting effective internal investigations to ensure your company qualifies for a DPA.

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When Should a Defendant Bring a Motion for Summary Judgment in Fraud Proceedings?

Glenn GibsonJohn Pirie By Glenn Gibson and John Pirie on Posted in Fraud and Insolvency Law, Fraud Prevention, Fraud Recovery

This is our third and final post on the complex fraud carried out by Norma and Ronald Walton, and the Ontario Court of Appeal decisions arising from their scheme. In our earlier posts, we focused on the use of a constructive trust as a remedy for breach of fiduciary duty and third party fraud liability. In this post, we discuss the risk that comes with bringing a summary judgment motion in the context of a complex fraud action. Continue Reading

Employee’s Silence about Fraud Leads to $20 Million Civil Judgment for Employer

Jennifer Bernardo By Jennifer Bernardo on Posted in Employment Related Fraud

A recent decision from the Ontario Superior Court demonstrates the overlap between civil and criminal findings, and how an employer can use a criminal verdict to recover additional damages in a civil claim. In Atlas Copco Canada Inc. v. David Hillier 2018 ONSC 1558, rendered March 7, 2018, an employer “piggybacked” off of a criminal court decision to recover an additional $20 million from an ex-senior employee who accepted payments and benefits in return for allowing a fraud to continue.

This decision highlights an employer’s possible options for fraud recovery, as well as the steep costs for employees of participating in fraudulent schemes. Continue Reading

B.C. Court finds Civil Fraud by Omission in Wang v Shao

Brendan O'GradyJohn Pirie By Brendan O'Grady and John Pirie on Posted in Fraud Recovery

We previously reported in an article last August that Ontario Courts are increasingly finding civil fraud on the basis of material omissions, as in the United Kingdom. This trend has continued in a recent decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Wang v Shao, 2018 BCSC 377.

The case involved the aborted sale of a home in Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood for a purchase price of $6.138 million. After viewing the home, the purchaser specifically inquired through real estate agents why the vendor was selling it. The vendor’s daughter (who held power of attorney) claimed that she was selling the home because her daughter had changed schools. The purchaser was satisfied with this answer, and executed an agreement of purchase and sale. However the answer was found to be incomplete. In fact, she was also selling the home because her husband (who was alleged to be associated with a criminal gang) had been murdered outside the home two years earlier and there were concerns about the safety of the family. Continue Reading

Constructive Trust as a Remedy for Breach of Fiduciary Duty: Court of Appeal Clarifies Test for Granting Proprietary Remedies

John PirieGlenn Gibson By John Pirie and Glenn Gibson on Posted in Fraud Recovery

This is our second of three posts on the Ontario Court of Appeal’s recent decision in DBDC Spadina Ltd. v. Walton 2018 ONCA 60 arising out of a complex fraud scheme perpetrated by Norma and Ronauld Walton. This post discusses the finding by the Court of Appeal that it was inappropriate for the application judge to have granted a constructive trust as a remedy for breach of fiduciary duty. The Court of Appeal set aside the constructive trust because a fiduciary’s wrongful acts must give rise to an identifiable asset (there was no such asset), and it was inequitable to “leapfrog” one class of victims over other victims of the fraud in the circumstances of the case. Continue Reading