Law360 Canada ( September 29, 2017, 8:28 AM EDT) -- Appeal by the Attorney General of Canada (AGC) from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal affirming a decision concluding that the obligation to submit to discovery in a proceeding in which it was not a party applied to the federal Crown (Crown). The Court had to determine whether a chief investigator from the federal government’s Competition Bureau could be required to submit to discovery under the rules of civil procedure that applied in Quebec in proceedings in which neither the Crown nor the chief investigator was a party. Thouin was the designated member in a class action instituted by the respondents against Ultramar Ltd. and other oil companies and retailers. The group on whose behalf he was acting consisted of various people who claimed to have purchased gasoline in 14 cities or regions of Quebec and who were allegedly the victims of a conspiracy by those oil companies and retailers to fix gasoline prices. Thouin and the representative in a parallel class action proceeding applied for permission to examine the chief investigator and for an order requiring the AGC, as the Competition Bureau’s legal representative, to disclose to them all intercepted communications and all documents in the Bureau’s file from its investigation of the oil companies and retailers. The Superior Court granted permission to summon the chief investigator to be examined on discovery solely for the purpose of obtaining information about any knowledge he had specific to the territory covered by the class action, and also ordered the disclosure of any recordings and documents relevant to the proceedings in this case. The Court of Appeal concluded that s. 27 of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act (CLPA) lifted the Crown’s immunity and that the chief investigator could be examined on discovery under the Code of Civil Procedure. The AGC and the other appellants argued that the Court of Appeal erred in holding that Quebec rules of civil procedure applied to the Crown by virtue of s. 27 of the CLPA and that the chief investigator could as a result be examined on discovery even though the Crown was not a party in the proceedings. The central question in this appeal was whether Parliament had clearly and unequivocally lifted Crown immunity in such a case....