Ontario Archives - Page 11 of 32 - Arbitration Matters

June 7, 2022May 27, 2022

Ontario: Award set aside for “trickery and injustice” – #624

In Campbell v. Toronto Standard Condominium Corp. No. 2600, 2022 ONSC 2805, Justice Perell of the Ontario Super Court of Justice set aside an arbitral award for “constructive fraud” pursuant to s. 46(1), para. 9 of the Ontario Arbitration Act, 1991. The arbitral award ordered the Campbells, who were condominium owners (the “Owners”), to pay $30,641.72 to the Toronto Standard Condominium Corporation No. 2600 (the “Condo Corp.”), which represented the costs of their arbitration. The matter began as a dispute regarding the Owners’ alleged non-compliance with the rules of the Condo Corp, including noise complaints and short-term rentals. However, the Owners were led to believe that the arbitration would be limited to the reasonableness of Condo Corp.’s legal costs in enforcing compliance up to and including the arbitration. Justice Perell held that the Owners were “tricked” intothe arbitration because it was actually an arbitration on the non-compliance issues.While Justice Perell found that the Condo Corp. was not deceitful, he found that “[2]… it misled, outmanoeuvred, and outsmarted the [Owners]” such that “[t]he court should not countenance the trickery and the injustice.” As a result, the arbitral award was set aside.

June 2, 2022June 14, 2022

Ontario – Powers of Independent Accountant “acting as expert and not as arbitrator” – #622

In Elad Canada Operations Inc. v Rester Ontario Investments Inc., 2022 ONSC 2327, Justice Penny considered the role of an Independent Accountant retained by parties to a Share Purchase Agreement (“SPA”) to determine disputes relating to the calculation of post-closing purchase price adjustments. The Independent Accountant was to make a final determination, “acting as an expert and not an arbitrator”. In addition, the parties disputed the process for determination of the dispute after they had followed the information exchange protocol provided for in the SPA. The Vendor’s dispute notice disagreed with the Purchaser’s calculation of the adjustment and provided a narrative explanation. It argued that the Independent Accountant’s jurisdiction to make a final determination “based solely on the written submissions of the parties” referred to the information exchanged pursuant to the protocol and did not allow the Purchaser to provide “narrative” submissions in response to the Vendor’s dispute notice. Justice Penny disagreed and found that this was the first opportunity the Purchaser had to respond to the issues in dispute and that it was, “inconceivable that both the parties and the independent accountant would not reasonably expect that written submissions to the independent accountant would: a) identify the points in dispute; and b) set out each side’s position on those points” (para. 35). Once Justice Penny had interpreted the SPA, the issue of the correct calculation of the post-closing adjustment was to be decided by the Independent Accountant.

May 25, 2022May 26, 2022

Ontario – Dismissal of appeal of order enforcing award as abuse of process – #621

In Ledsham v. Air Canada Pilots Association, 2022 ONSC 1877, a self-represented litigant found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time to appeal an order enforcing an arbitral award. Justice D.L. Corbett of the Ontario Divisional Court summarily dismissed the appeal under rule 2.1.01 of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure. That Rule provides that the court may, on its own initiative, stay or dismiss a proceeding if it appears on its face to be frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of the process. Despite observing several badges of vexatiousness, Justice Corbett declined to declare the appellant a vexatious litigant. He nevertheless found the appeal before him was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process.

May 24, 2022May 26, 2022

Ontario – Arbitration or expert determination? Stay granted, referral to “Independent Accountant” – #620

In 2832402 Ontario Inc. v 2853462 Ontario Inc., QBD Modular Systems Inc., and QBD Cooling Systems Inc., 2022 ONSC 2694, Justice Conway was asked to decide whether the parties had agreed to arbitration or expert determination. The parties had entered into a Share Purchase Agreement (“SPA”), which contained a dispute resolution clause to deal with disagreements as to post-closing purchase price adjustments, which disputes were to be determined by an “Independent Accountant”. A dispute arose and the Vendor brought a court application against the Purchaser for production of documents to allow it to calculate the post-closing adjustments. The Vendor argued that even if the parties had agreed to arbitration, the document production issue was outside the jurisdiction of the Independent Accountant. Justice Conway considered the various indicia of arbitration and concluded that the clause in the SPA was an arbitration clause. Therefore, she stayed the application and referred the production issue to the Independent Accountant. That issue was relevant to the Independent Accountant’s ability to decide the parties’ dispute as to the amount of the post-closing purchase price adjustment.

May 22, 2022May 26, 2022

Ontario – Trial required to determine compliance with arbitration preconditions – #618

In H. R. Doornekamp Construction Ltd. v. Canada (Attorney General) (Department of Public Works and Government Services), 2022 ONSC 2247, the Divisional Court (Justices Stewart, Lederer and Tzimas) dismissed the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment and decided that a trial was required to determine whether a party had properly complied with a condition precedent to an arbitration clause. The issue was whether the Plaintiff’s rights under the dispute resolution clause were extinguished or whether the Defendant’s conduct was such that the Plaintiff’s rights were not yet engaged.

May 19, 2022May 19, 2022

Ontario – Appeal permitted on issue not first submitted to arbitrator for correction – #617

In Farmer v Farmer, 2022 ONSC 2410, Justice Alex Finlayson found that he had discretion to consider an issue on appeal that had not been raised before the arbitrator as an error to be corrected or amended pursuant to s. 44(1) of the Ontario Arbitration Act, 1991, SO 1991, c. 17. Justice Finlayson found that there was a “dearth” of authority on this issue and set out principles to be considered when deciding whether a court should exercise its discretion. Here, the issue raised was one that was intertwined with an issue that was properly before the court on the appeal, there was no prejudice to the parties, and the error was discovered by the court after the expiry of the 30-day period under s. 44(1) for seeking correction or amendment of the award from the arbitrator.

May 12, 2022May 10, 2022

Ontario – Set- aside application failed; dispute covered by arbitration agreement, no objection to jurisdiction – #616

In Baffinland v Tower-EBC, 2022 ONSC 1900, Justice Pattillo dismissed both: (1) an application to set aside an award from a majority of an arbitral tribunal (the “Majority Award”) under section 46 of the Arbitration Act, 1991, S.O. 1991, c. 17 (the “Act”); and (2) an application for an order granting leave to appeal the Majority Award and Costs Award under section 45(1) of the Act. Justice Pattillo found there were no grounds upon which to set aside the Majority Award; there was no lack of jurisdiction or failure to be treated equally and fairly. Nor could leave to appeal be granted under section 45(1) of the Act because the arbitration agreement precluded an appeal.

May 10, 2022May 10, 2022

Ontario – Determining appeal rights in arbitration agreement in effect since 1960 Arbitration Act – #614

In D Lands Inc. v KS Victoria and King, 2022 ONSC 1029, Justice Dietrich granted the Landlord leave to appeal the tribunal Majority’s award in a rent reset arbitration, but ultimately dismissed the appeal and the Landlord’s application to set aside the Majority’s award on jurisdictional grounds. Her reasons summarize the legal principles to be applied to determine whether the parties agreed to a right of appeal and, in particular: (1) the effect of an arbitration agreement when it spans a period of time in which more than one piece of arbitration legislation governed that provided for different rights of appeal; and (2) as a matter of contract interpretation, the language necessary for the parties to contract out of rights of appeal. Here, the parties’ agreement was entered into in 1968 and the arbitration legislation in Ontario changed since then from an “opt in” regime to an “opt out” regime. However, the parties provided in their arbitration clause that any arbitration was to be conducted under the ICDR Rules, which were silent on appeal rights. Therefore, it was necessary for Justice Dietrich to interpret the contract as a whole to determine the parties’ intentions. The words in the arbitration agreement that the tribunal’s award “is conclusive on the parties” and that judgment may be entered in any court having jurisdiction were not sufficiently clear to express an intention to contract out of a right to appeal.

April 26, 2022April 25, 2022

Ontario – Clause specifying non-exclusive attornment to courts doesn’t override arbitration clause – #609

In Husky Food Importers v. JH Whittaker & Sons, 2022 ONSC 1679, Justice Conway granted a stay of proceedings in favour of arbitration despite an allegation that no underlying agreement was ever finalized and notwithstanding a clause stating that the courts of New Zealand had non-exclusive jurisdiction.

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022

Ontario – Arbitrators can decide non-legal business disputes, but not in this case – #608

The case 1107051 Ontario Ltd. v. GG Kingspa Enterprises Limited Partnership, 2022 ONSC 1847 concerned the jurisdiction of an arbitrator to decide a business dispute that was not legal in nature. The Applicant, 1107051 Ontario Ltd. (“110”), applied to “set aside” a decision of an arbitrator to assume jurisdiction over a dispute about whether a major real estate development project at King Street West and Spadina Avenue in Toronto (the “Project”) should include a hotel component when the parties were deadlocked on the issue. Section 17(8) of the Ontario Arbitration Act allows a party to apply to the Court to “decide” a jurisdictional issue if, as here, an arbitrator decides it as a preliminary question, as opposed to with the merits. Justice McEwen granted the “set aside”. He agreed with the arbitrator that the dispute was of a business nature and not legal and, further, that parties could arbitrate such non-justiciable disputes if they clearly and specifically intended to do so. In this case, although the arbitration clause was described as broad, the dispute was beyond its scope because the dispute was required by the clause to arise “under this Agreement”. That meant the dispute had to be about more than just anything to do with the Project. It had to concern the rights and obligations of the parties under the Agreement. Although a hotel was contemplated as part of the Project, it was not a required component. Further, express authorization to determine a business issue would have been necessary.