In-House Counsel

  • 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.