Our Commercial Litigation Blog

Welcome to Whitelaw Twining's BC Commerical Litigation Blog. We will be constantly on the lookout for interesting decisions from the BC courts that impact on commercial litigation issues. When we find something of interest to our clients, colleagues and friends, we’ll blog about it. Please provide any feedback, negative or positive to the Group’s Chair, John Fiddick at jfiddick@wt.ca.

Our Commercial Litigation Blog

  • 2015
    August
    25

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    The Perils of Accepting a Consent to Judgement from a Potential Fraudster

    The decision of the BC Court of Appeal in H.Y. Louie v. Bowick 2015 BCCA 256 provides a cautionary tale of the risks to a creditor (and counsel) inherent in accepting a consent to judgment from a defendant who may have engaged in fraud. The decision resides at the crossroads of momentary satisfaction of obtaining a judgment and the subsequent frustration of seeing that judgment become unenforceable through a bankruptcy.

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  • 2014
    October
    23

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    The Reasoning and the Impact of the Decision in Sattva Capital Corporation v. Creston Moly Corporation 2014 SCC 53

    The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) in Sattva Capital Corporation v. Creston Moly Corporation is the most detailed and thorough discussion relating to appeals of commercial arbitration decisions in many years. The timing is important as more and more commercial matters are being dealt with, at first instance, by way of arbitration. The result of the decision is that the first instance will more often be the last instance. Leave to appeal commercial arbitration decisions, traditionally hard to come by, will be even more rarely granted in the wake of the SCC’s reasoning.

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  • 2014
    May
    12

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    The Purchaser's Lien Revisited

    Recently, the BC Court of Appeal had the opportunity to consider a remedy that has confused lawyers for decades - the purchaser's lien.

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  • 2014
    March
    03

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    Binning House Sale Not Approved...Yet

    A recent decision by Madam Justice Fitzpatrick in (Re) TLC The Land Conservancy of British Columbia 2014 BCSC 97 dealt with the intersection of the law of restructuring, trusts and also wills and estates in the context of an insolvency proceeding.

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  • 2013
    December
    13

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    Acceleration of Debt waives Prepayment Penalty

    The recent decision of the BC Court of Appeal in Maxam Opportunity Fund v. Greenscape Capital Group Inc. 2013 BCCA 460 dealt, for the first time, with the issue of whether, and to what extent, a prepayment fee in a loan agreement could be recovered after the lender demanded payment following an event of default.

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  • 2013
    October
    15

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    Pre-trial Sworn Statements - Not Proper and Not Privileged!

    The temptation is often there; you've interviewed a witness or a party and you want to confirm their evidence as you prepare your case. It seems innocent enough and you start drafting an affidavit for the witness to swear - that's when you have to stop!

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  • 2013
    September
    18

    BY: John C. Fiddick

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    Think you're getting your deposit back? - BC Court of Appeal says think again!

    In almost all real estate purchases, the purchaser is required to pay a deposit to the vendor. This is to provide some comfort to the vendor that the purchaser is serious about completing the sale. Over the past decade or so, there has been a proliferation of pre-sale contracts; especially for strata-titled properties. Pre-sale contracts work to the benefit of both parties in that purchasers can get in to a property at lower prices and developers, when they have a sufficient percentage of pre-sales, can obtain conventional, lower-cost financing.

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