Law360 Canada ( January 12, 2022, 6:22 AM EST) -- Appeal by the defendant SecurTek Monitoring Solutions Inc. from trial judgment finding it liable for breach of contract. The trial judge found SecurTek interfered with the plaintiffs’ right to service alarm accounts when SecurTek transferred them to the third party, AAA. The plaintiffs were in the business of selling, installing and servicing commercial and residential alarm systems. The plaintiffs sold these wholesale accounts to SecurTek which then provided alarm monitoring to the plaintiffs for these accounts, but the plaintiffs continued servicing these accounts. These sales turned the wholesale accounts of the plaintiffs into the retail accounts of SecurTek. As part of a swap transaction, SecurTek sold to AAA 1,639 retail accounts which were previously purchased from the plaintiffs. As part of the swap transaction, AAA, a competitor of the plaintiffs also in the business of selling, installing and servicing alarm systems, now serviced these accounts. The plaintiffs thus lost to AAA the business of servicing the 1,639 alarm accounts and the incidental economic benefits from moving customers and referrals. The trial judge found SecurTek was bound by the admissions of its representative at his examination for discovery that SecurTek could not interfere with the plaintiffs’ right under the purchase agreements to service the alarm accounts. The trial judge found these admissions supported his contractual interpretation, especially that the meaning of clause 5 of the purchase agreements was not an obligation against the plaintiffs but, in fact, was an enforceable contractual right in their favour. Despite the apparent wording of clause 5 of the purchase agreements creating an obligation on the plaintiffs to provide service, the trial judge was of the view that because of the surrounding circumstances, it was intended by the parties that the plaintiffs were contractually entitled to provide services to the customers....