The Complete Brief
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January 23, 2026
Court grants relief to compel band council to implement financial transparency, accountability
A chief and council in southeastern B.C. found itself in court to respond to demands for compliance under its own Financial Administration Law (FAL).
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January 23, 2026
Moral, legal imperatives affecting restitution of looted art
As someone involved in the field of art restitution, I often marvel at the different types of responses that we receive once we advise someone that the artwork in their possession was looted during the Holocaust and must now be returned to its rightful owners. Possessors who find themselves in this predicament range from private individuals to corporations and foundations, but most institutional possessors are clearly museums, which range from small regional ones in Western and Eastern Europe to the most prominent ones in Europe and the United States.
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January 23, 2026
POWERS OF SEARCH AND SEIZURE - Forfeiture of items seized
Appeal by Breton from an order forfeiting over $1.2 million in cash seized from his garage to the Crown. The appellant had previously been acquitted of all criminal charges, including possession of proceeds of crime, after the trial judge excluded all evidence under s. 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms due to unlawful searches.
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January 22, 2026
Algorithmic pricing poses risks to competition, fairness: Competition Bureau consultation
Stakeholders have warned that algorithmic pricing could enable anticompetitive conduct and that insufficient data transparency may harm consumers, workers and competition, according to feedback from a recent Competition Bureau consultation.
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January 22, 2026
BCSC panel finds company investing millions carried out pump-and-dump scheme
A B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) panel has found that a Vancouver company and numerous associated people carried out a pump-and-dump scheme for artificial inflation of the share price of B.C. issuers. The company said it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal.
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January 22, 2026
Court upholds stay of enforcement against Webuild pending Italian liability ruling
The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a stay of proceedings seeking to enforce a Chilean arbitration award against Webuild, ruling that whether the company assumed the underlying liability through an acquisition must first be decided by Italian courts.
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January 22, 2026
Court allows appeal in restaurant dispute for unjust enrichment
The Ontario Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal regarding an alleged unjust enrichment claim for chattels used by a restaurant despite its refusal to complete an asset sale agreement.
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January 22, 2026
Lawyers punished for failure to upload to Case Center
For several years now, judges, lawyers and law clerks have been forced to pivot from paper to digital documents. In litigation, Case Center (formerly CaseLines) is the only game in town. If a party or their lawyer wants their case heard, their material must be uploaded to Case Center.
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January 22, 2026
Two former justice ministers among Alberta lawyers criticizing province’s ‘unacceptable behaviour’
Two former Alberta justice ministers are among a group of lawyers and articling students attacking the provincial government for what they call “unacceptable behaviour” and urging Albertans to “use their voices to preserve our democratic institutions.”
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January 22, 2026
What I learned about artificial intelligence in the 1990s
My law firm had a thriving real estate practice in the 1980s. When the real estate market tanked from 1989 until about 1996, they were not happy times. We did not hire any real estate lawyers in those days.