On October 9, 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in RBC Dominion Securities v. Merrill Lynch Canada. The court restored an award of approximately $1.5 million in damages against a branch manager who had coordinated the defection of almost all his branch’s sales group from RBC to Merrill Lynch.

Employers with operations in Canada may well ask: “What’s going on up there? What will Canada’s federal election mean for business? How is the world financial crisis playing out there?”

In an important recent decision, Ontario’s Court of Appeal has reconfirmed that noncompetition clauses will be enforced against departing employees only in exceptional circumstances. It allowed two insurance salespersons to take many of their clients to a competing insurance broker despite their contractual agreement to the contrary.

As we reported earlier this year, 2007 saw three overtime class action lawsuits in Canada — a $651 million class-action lawsuit filed against the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), followed quickly by a $20 million class action against KPMG and then a $350 million class action against a second major Canadian Bank, Scotiabank. Another [...]