In-House Counsel

  • September 15, 2026

    From LOI to close: Buyer’s playbook for the legal process of acquiring a business

    Over the past several years, I have bought a number of small, closely held businesses, including professional firms like law firms. Along the way our team has learned that the legal process of getting a deal done is not something to hand off entirely to counsel and wait. This is because many times, lawyers may have drafting and negotiation experience but aren’t too helpful at driving the transaction to its end while helping buyers make decisions. Buyers who understand what’s happening at each stage — and why — will close their transaction, on better terms, with less drama.

  • September 14, 2026

    TMU controversy tests the limits of law society regulation

    Justice Mary Lou Benotto’s recent review of Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) contains disturbing accounts of antisemitism. Jewish students, faculty and staff describe harassment, concealing their identity and feeling unsafe. Those accounts should be taken seriously, and TMU has an obligation to address them.

  • September 11, 2026

    RBC’s immigration reset diagnoses the problem, but solutions remain elusive

    RBC’s new report, “A Smarter Immigration Strategy: Five Questions That Could Help Shape Canada’s Future,” arrives at an opportune moment. Published Sept. 1, it draws on consultations with more than 60 economists, demographers, policymakers and other experts.

  • September 10, 2026

    Privacy commissioner issues guidance on vetting third-party service providers

    The federal privacy commissioner has released guidance to help businesses assess third-party service providers’ privacy practices before working with them.

  • September 10, 2026

    Feds shift pipeline, power-line assessments to Canada Energy Regulator

    Canada has announced amendments to the Physical Activities Regulations (the Project List) under the Impact Assessment Act to streamline the review process for projects including pipelines, international and designated interprovincial power lines, and some offshore renewable energy projects.

  • September 10, 2026

    Court finds US$3M retention applies to ransomware attack insurance claim

    The Ontario Court of Appeal has overturned a ruling in Panasonic Canada Inc.’s insurance coverage dispute with XL Specialty Insurance, finding that an endorsement governing cyber extortion and ransomware events with a US$3-million retention displaced the base policy’s US$1.5-million retention.

  • September 09, 2026

    N.S. introduces changes to protect workers’ tips, overtime hours

    Nova Scotia has introduced legislative changes in a bid to fight tip theft, recover unpaid earnings owed to workers and ensure they are paid for overtime.

  • September 09, 2026

    Federal Court holds MediaTube, principal in contempt over disclosure of confidential Bell documents

    The Federal Court has found MediaTube Corp. and its principal, Douglas Lloyd, in contempt for repeatedly threatening to disclose and disclosing confidential litigation materials after MediaTube was unsuccessful in patent litigation against Bell Canada.

  • September 09, 2026

    Clashing swords over the black box of AI legal interpretation

    This is the first of two articles on the controversy surrounding the use of AI in legal interpretation. This article examines the battle lines and the critics’ case against AI. The second looks for common ground: how lawyers can use AI in legal interpretation without expecting it to provide the decisive answer it cannot provide.

  • September 08, 2026

    Federal judges’ legal tab so far tops $1M as they take constitutional pay dispute to court

    Ottawa has agreed that the federal judiciary reasonably incurred more than $1 million in legal fees and disbursements to participate in the independent quadrennial process that is meant to depoliticize determinations of federal judicial remuneration and avoid pay disputes.

  • September 08, 2026

    Federal Court awards First Nation $27M over Grand Rapids dam expropriation

    The Federal Court has ordered Canada to pay the Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) $27 million in equitable compensation, finding that it breached its fiduciary duty by approving the 1964 expropriation of a Manitoba reserve for the Grand Rapids dam without securing mitigation or compensation for the dam’s effects on the First Nation’s traditional way of life.

  • September 04, 2026

    Ontario court upholds law shielding public officials from legal action

    Ontario’s top court has upheld a law that extinguished a developer’s potential claims against the province over its Greenbelt land designation, ruling that the constitutional protection of the superior courts’ core jurisdiction does not create an individual right to sue the government.

  • September 04, 2026

    Is an EAP enough to meet duty to protect employee psychological health?

    Workplace mental-health conversations have acquired a favourite word. Employees are urged to become more resilient — to practise mindfulness, access counselling and build the capacity to absorb stress. There is nothing inherently wrong with that advice. The legal problem begins when resilience is offered as the answer to a workplace problem the employer itself has a duty to control.

  • September 04, 2026

    When your business partner freezes you out: What shareholders in Ontario can do

    Business relationships do not always break down cleanly. In closely held companies, disputes tend to begin gradually.

  • September 03, 2026

    Ottawa rolls out ‘national framework’ aimed at guiding the building of data centres in Canada

    Ottawa has unveiled what it calls “a nationally recognized baseline” of five principles — backed by major U.S. and Canadian artificial intelligence and other technology industry players — to help municipal governments and communities assess proposals to build AI data centres in their localities.

  • September 03, 2026

    Employers’ association calls for Canada Labour Code changes

    The association Federally Regulated Employers – Transportation and Communications (FETCO) said it is urging the federal government to quickly make amendments to the Canada Labour Code provisions relating to collective bargaining in light of the U.S. trade dispute.

  • September 03, 2026

    Roland Hung named chair of Torkin Manes’ privacy and cybersecurity group

    Torkin Manes has named Roland Hung chair of its Privacy, Data & Cybersecurity Group in Toronto.

  • September 03, 2026

    Closing the loopholes: The HEAR Act of 2025 and the battle for merits-based art restitution

    In the early years of art restitution, after the signing of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art in 1998, several museums in the United States launched pre-emptive strikes against claimants of looted artworks who expressed an interest in discussing or resolving their claim. Examples include the Toledo Museum of Art v. Ullin, 477 F. Supp. 2d 802 (N.D. Ohio 2006); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston v. Seger-Thomschitz, 623 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2010) and The Museum of Modern Art v. Schoeps, 549 F. Supp. 2d 543 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). The first two cases were dismissed in favour of the museums and in the latter case an out-of-court settlement was reached.

  • September 02, 2026

    B.C. Court of Appeal adopts open-access legal citation guide

    The B.C. Court of Appeal has issued a practice directive adopting the Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide (COAL), a free, publicly accessible legal citation guide, as its preferred method for civil and criminal filings in an effort to advance access to justice.

  • September 02, 2026

    Ottawa extends temporary excise tax relief on gasoline, diesel & aviation fuels to next year

    To help address Canadians' rising costs from global oil disruptions and U.S. tariffs, the federal government has extended to next year its temporary suspension of the federal fuel excise tax on gasoline, diesel fuel, and aviation fuel, including leaded and unleaded aviation gasoline.

  • September 02, 2026

    SOCAN sues AI music platform Suno over allegedly infringing music outputs

    Canada’s largest member-owned music rights organization, SOCAN, has filed a lawsuit against Suno Inc., alleging that its AI music-generation platform generated and streamed outputs that copy songs in SOCAN’s repertoire, infringing the performing rights in those works.

  • September 02, 2026

    When the estate freeze thaws: Familial breakdown, minority oppression and judicial remedies

    An estate freeze puts tax liabilities on ice, but heated family dynamics can melt away the tax benefits of the freeze.

  • September 02, 2026

    Geo-blocking, copyright and the right to make works available online

    In Anne Franks Fonds v. Anne Frank Stichting Case C-788/24, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the highest court of the EU, considered the right to make a work available on a website and the impact of technical protection measures implemented to restrict access to the work. The decision should be helpful to online content providers.

  • September 02, 2026

    How escalation actually works under Canada’s anti-money-laundering penalty regime

    One provision of Canada’s anti-money-laundering penalty regime is quoted more often than it is read. Section 4(2) of the Administrative Monetary Penalties Regulation provides that a series of minor violations identified on a notice of violation “shall be considered to be a serious violation” where the penalties total $400,000 or more. That sentence has appeared, in substantially that form, in law firm bulletins, compliance explainers and vendor guides published since the regime was overhauled in March 2026.

  • September 01, 2026

    The hard truth about private equity’s entry into the law firm market

    Private equity is beginning to enter the legal industry with transactions such as Uplift’s acquisition of Dudley DeBosier Personal Injury, Trive Capital’s acquiring Massumi + Consoli, and Morgan & Morgan’s hiring of JPMorgan to explore a private equity sale.

Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the In-House Counsel archive.