In-House Counsel

  • 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.

  • August 31, 2026

    Can tariffs excuse performance of a commercial contract in Ontario?

    On Aug. 22, the United States imposed 50 per cent tariffs on a broad list of Canadian goods under s. 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which is a provision essentially unused for the better part of a century.

  • August 28, 2026

    Privilege under siege: Why traditional multi-factor authentication is not enough to protect client data

    Law firms have long served as trusted guardians of highly sensitive information, but the digital landscape is rapidly changing how that data is protected — and attacked. According to a recent legal services threat intelligence report, the legal sector in the U.S. experienced a 20 per cent year-over-year increase in cybersecurity incidents over the past 12 months.

  • August 28, 2026

    One win for employers, one for employees, and one for me

    It is not often that the Ontario Court of Appeal hands employers and employees each a win within the same week, but that is what happened this summer. And if you act for either side, or, like me, you spend much of your week mediating these disputes and nudging both parties toward a sensible number, the court just gave you two decisions worth reading.