The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday that former newspaper mogul Conrad Black is entitled to pursue libel suits in Ontario against the authors of a report that said he ran his U.S.-based media company, Hollinger International Inc, like a “corporate kleptocracy”.

Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel leave federal court in Chicago, June 24, 2011. (Photo: John Gress/Reuters)

Black, 67, is currently serving a prison sentence in Florida for fraud and obstruction of justice and expects to be released next month. His spokesman Adam Daifallah said Black was delighted with the Canadian court’s ruling.

But an agreement to settle the defamation suits and other court actions, reached after the Supreme Court heard the case in March 2011, could render the ruling in Breeden v. Black moot.

Black has sought more than $2.3 billion in damages in his libel suits. The defendants are Richard Breeden, a former head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who spearheaded a 2004 Hollinger committee report on Black’s practices, along with three committee members, and other former Hollinger directors.

The report said Black, a former Canadian citizen who is now a member of the British House of Lords, looted publisher Hollinger International of hundreds of millions of dollars. Black denies the charge.

Hollinger used to own Britain’s Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Sun-Times and many other papers.

In a statement on Wednesday, Daifallah said Black and the defendants had entered into a memorandum of understanding to resolve these legal actions as well as others in the United States.

“The settlement remains subject to court approvals in Ontario and Delaware and, once approved, disposes of these actions notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s favorable decision today,” Daifallah said. No money has yet been exchanged.

Earlier, he characterized the agreement as enforceable and as one that would not be affected by the Supreme Court decision.

The defendants say their comments were justified, and they were doing what was required under U.S. securities law.

The Supreme Court dismissed arguments by the defendants that Black was a “libel tourist” who shopped for the easiest jurisdiction to win his case. Black had filed a number of libel lawsuits not connected to this case.

Black’s lawyers argued his reputation was more tied to Ontario than anywhere else, even though Black gave up Canadian citizenship. Black is now a British citizen.

Jacques Audette, a veteran labour lawyer whose clients include the Montreal municipal police force, has been caught up in the net thrown around 15 people and two engineering and construction companies Tuesday in a major dawn operation by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad.

Jacques Audette

Audette, 59, a partner at the Montreal office of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP for almost 10 years, now faces six charges under the Criminal Code including fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, breach of trust, fraud on a government, and influencing a municipal official in Mascouche, a city north of Montreal.

Mascouche Mayor Richard Marcotte, Quebec construction business kingpin Antonio (Tony) Accurso, and Louis-George Boudreault, a long-time Quebec Liberal Party organizer, are also among those facing a total of 47 charges as a result of the massive search and arrest operation by more than 120 police officers and civilian investigators working with Quebec’s Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC), an entity created last year to look into questionable practices in public works and provisioning contracts and fight against corruption.

Dubbed Operation Gravel, an 18-month investigation “allowed us to establish that a system had been put in place a few years ago allowing certain companies to gain an advantage towards the attribution of municipal contracts,” Quebec provincial police Lt. Guy Lapointe said at a news conference.

Police said the arrests and charges — including those laid against engineering company BPR-Triax Inc. and construction firm Transport et Excavation Mascouche Inc. — followed an analysis of seized documents and computer hard drives, 120 interviews and — and according to the Montreal La Presse newspaper — a mole working on the inside on behalf of UPAC.

Fasken Martineau acknowledged Audette’s arrest in a brief statement Tuesday.

“As there is an ongoing police investigation, the firm is unable to offer additional comment,” Fasken said, adding that it “will cooperate fully with any inquiries by the Sûreté du Québec (Quebec’s provincial police force).”

Audette’s bio on the law firm’s web page does not mention any municipal public works contracts but notes that the lawyer “has been very active at the municipal level since the beginning of his (30-year) career. He was an important player in municipal mergers, mainly on the island of Montreal.”

Clients that are mentioned include the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) in “many highly publicized and important labour relations cases,” the Société des alcools du Québec, the government-owned corporation for liquor trade in the province, and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA).

As the media and social media sizzled over Tuesday’s police swoop down, the filing of criminal charges, and speculation about how ongoing investigations might affect other companies and lawyers who act for them, Quebec Premier Jean Charest said Tuesday’s operation demonstrates that “no one is above the law.”

Audette and the other suspects — with the exception of the Mascouche mayor who was reported to be in Cuba on holiday — were taken to holding cells headquarters of Sûreté du Québec headquarters, but later released.

They are set to respond to charges in a court appearance scheduled for June 19.

A former lawyer who resigned from practice during his articling and was later disbarred after his conviction for fraud has been denied a third shot at the profession after a hearing panel of the Law Society of Upper Canada decided he was not of good character.

Dennis-Gwyn Gross told a hearing panel he had turned his life around since serving a five-month jail term in 2000 for defrauding various members of the public.

His younger girlfriend left him after his arrest and he had been working as a material handler at a Niagara Falls Value Village since his release. He also looked after his mother in the home they shared until her death at the age of 98 in 2011.

Gross told the panel his low wages had prevented him from paying restitution to his victims or obtaining a pardon for his conviction, but aimed to remedy both if allowed to return to practice in the area of criminal law.

“I believe I can be a lawyer again and contribute meaningfully to society,” Gross said at his hearing in November.

Gross first ran into trouble with the law society in the mid-1980s when he was given permission to resign his student membership during his articling year after being found guilty of misconduct for attempting to remove a file from his articling firm for himself and providing legal services without supervision.

In 1987, a new panel decided he could be called to the bar as long as he promised not to practise as a sole practitioner for at least a year afterwards.

Then in July 2000, Gross pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud, including against clients. He received an eight-month conditional sentence in addition to the five months he had spent in jail awaiting trial. He was also disbarred in that year, after the law society found he had misappropriated almost $10,000 from the trust funds of 13 clients.

A more lucrative scam involved transferring the title of his mother’s home to himself and then registering a series of mortgages and forged discharges on the property. Mortgagees claimed more than $400,000 in civil actions against Gross, while the judge in his criminal trial ordered him to pay restitution of $300,000. Gross managed to raise $200,000 of that total from the sale of the house and other property.

Gross then made his application for readmission in 2007, admitting that he hadn’t been able to afford any formal continuing legal education in the intervening years. According to the panel’s decision, he told them he “occasionally read the Ontario Reports and some legal decisions on the Internet.” Gross admitted he was not competent to practise criminal law without some more CLE, but said he was willing to work under a mentorship agreement.

The panel was impressed by Gross’ “emphatic and heart felt remorse,” but expressed concerns about his rehabilitation. He only began treatment in June 2011 after the death of his mother, and his doctor was unable to provide assurances on how Gross might react if faced with future temptation. The panel also noted Gross’ lack of effort to repay the money he still owes to the financial institutions he defrauded.

“While we are of course sympathetic to his financial situation since his disbarment . . . the fact remains that there is no evidence of any effort to repay even nominal or small amounts of the debts that were created by the applicant’s fraudulent conduct,” reads the decision.

“While a sufficient time span has elapsed to justify a reassessment of his character, and indeed he has expressed genuine remorse for his earlier actions, we have balanced those factors against the nature and extent of his previous misconduct and what we conclude is insufficient evidence at the hearing before us of rehabilitative steps and other actions on his part to satisfy us of his present good character. It may be that he will be able to make a stronger case at a later date.”

Canada

'Bachelor' TV show to be hit with class action discrimination suit, Reuters

Globe review finds 98% of federally appointed judges are white, The Globe and Mail

Federal Court orders new hearing for child welfare on reserves, Winnipeg Free Press

United States

Howard Stern's $330M Sirius suit dropped, Windsor Star

Appeals court says Arizona can demand voters show identification, Reuters

International

Norway mass murderer says he's being ridiculed in court, Canoe News

Britain to deport Bin Laden's 'right-hand man', Reuters

 

On April 17, lawyers and legal professionals took part in a flash mob in Ottawa to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Bar Association organized the event as part of its Law Day activities.

Canadian in-house counsel say their organizations value them most for providing risk management, followed by regulatory compliance advice and controlling external costs, according to a recent survey.

(Source: 2012 In-House Counsel Barometer)

The 2012 In-House Counsel Barometer survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion and sponsored by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg was presented yesterday in Montreal during the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association’s national spring conference.

The survey, completed by 411 Canadian in-house counsel, shows that providing value as in-house counsel is closely tied to managing or reducing risk with 84 per cent of participants citing risk management, followed by ensuring regulatory compliance (48 per cent), and controlling costs of external counsel (44 per cent) as the top ways they provide value in their organization.

The majority of in-house counsel taking part in the survey also say they feel the work they do is valued in their organization.

Participants were asked to indicate whether they feel the work they do is valued within their organization and 93 per cent said they feel they either valued or highly valued with an additional 28 per cent feeling they are moderately valued within their organization.

The majority of those surveyed — 82 per cent — who work for publicly traded companies reported that they work in an environment with strong support from management. Also, 68 per cent believe their organization would like to bring more work inside the organization, rather than outsource. However, three in 10 feel the organization they work for does not make appropriate use of their role.

A majority — 64 per cent — feels they often have internal clients who act without seeking legal advice, up 11 points from 2011.

The survey did show there was no connection between the type of law practised and whether an in-house counsel felt valued.

“There appears to be no relationship between the type of law you practice and feeling valued, it has more to do with the company you work for,” said Andrew Grenville, chief legal officer with Angus Reid Public Opinion who presented the findings.

The survey also revealed that key performance indicators are in place for two in five in-house counsel. Reviews of the implementation of KPIs for in-house counsel remain mixed, as they were in last year’s survey. Although the majority of in-house counsel working for an organization that has KPIs in place report they help prove the value of in-house counsel (58 per cent), a majority also feels KPIs are good in theory, but poor in practice (62 per cent). This is on par with findings from 2011, when KPIs were first evaluated.

In terms of hours worked by in-house counsel in Canada, those working for a wholly owned subsidiary of a public company work, on average, the most hours per week at 49 hours, followed closely by those who work for a public company at 48 hours or private company at 47 hours. In-house counsel working for not-for-profit organizations work an average of 45 hours, while those working in government work the fewest of all at 44 hours.

The hours in-house counsel are putting in apparently don’t allow for longer-term planning and pose the biggest challenge for them. New to the survey for 2012, participants were asked to rank eight challenges their profession faces. A majority (65 per cent) said the day-to-day workload leaves little time for “big picture thinking” or the development of initiatives which would benefit the organization as a whole.

The “lack of simple and inexpensive matter management software tools for smaller law departments” was identified by 15 per cent of in-house counsel in public companies as the most important challenge.

In-house counsel also appear to be loyal to their employers. The average number of years in-house counsel have worked for their current employer is six, down one from 2011.

Canada

B.C. man faces jail time for anti-tax crusade, CBC News

Mill workers lose longstanding court fight in B.C., Canada.com

Ont. judge grants motion against dating website scammer, The Vancouver Sun

United States

Top court hears Glaxo overtime case, Reuters

New Miss. law threatens only abortion clinic, Reuters

International

Saudi rights activist jailed for 4 years, Reuters

Dutch court approves bomb suspect's extradition to U.S., Reuters

Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP ranks as the top Canadian law firm brand, according to a new survey by legal market research firm Acritas.

While Oslers didn’t rank as highly for unprompted brand awareness, it did score first when it came to questions around which firms general counsel favour, the most used, and the most likely candidates for top-level work.

“Overall, Osler was not first for unprompted brand awareness. That was actually McCarthy,” says Elizabeth Duffy, vice president of Acritas US Inc.

Acritas carried out the survey by asking 250 Canadian-based general counsel which law firms come first to mind; which they most favour; and which they’ll consider when it comes to top-level mergers-and-acquisitions work, bet-the-company litigation, and high-value files. It also asked 302 general counsel elsewhere which Canadians firms they’d mostly likely use for their legal needs here.

The survey shows, among other things, that bigger isn’t necessarily better. On this score, it gave the example of Torys LLP. “The firm sits in third place on the index, but despite its smaller (in relative terms) size and not being one of the top choices for international buyers, it still has a stronger brand than other larger firms,” Acritas noted in announcing the survey results.

In addition, the survey noted the trend of business clients seeking greater value from their law firms, an issue Duffy says doesn’t always relate to price. “Clients are not price-sensitive but they are value-sensitive. It’s less so much about dollar amounts and what they feel they’re getting for it.”

The value equation, according to Duffy, comes down in part to communication and relationships. As a result, law firms need to ensure they tailor the work they do to the business context and involve the client in decisions, she says.

Another trend identified by Acritas is the shift in work to second-tier law firms. In response to the economic downturn and tightening budgets, “we are seeing a shift across the global legal market as clients use top tier firms less for high value work overall,” Acritas noted. “Instead, they are thinking more carefully about which firm will provide the appropriate quality for the right price. What is true of the global legal market also stands for the Canadian market.”

According to Duffy, that means companies aren’t necessarily using the top-paid legal specialists for all of their needs. “They’re looking at the context of each piece of work,” she says, a trend accentuated by the increased choices available as more global law firms pop up.

Canada

Lawyers for accused to testify in Nortel trial, The Globe and Mail

Ont. woman charged with sister-in-law's murder, CBC News

Feds ask Iran to release Canadian on death row, Toronto Star

United States

Top court to hear copyright law case, Reuters

Supreme Court upholds ex-Enron chief's conviction, Reuters

International

Norway gunman pleads not guilty, Reuters

4 Turkish generals awaiting trial jailed over 1997 coup, Reuters

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear the following appeals this week:

April 16 — Quebec — R. v. Carmelo Venneri

Criminal law: Carmelo Venneri and two others were convicted of trafficking drugs for a criminal organization. The majority of the Court of Appeal allowed Venneri’s appeal in part and found him not guilty on several of the charges.

April 17 — Federal Court — Cogeco Cable Inc. v. Bell Media Inc. (formerly CTV Globemedia Inc.), V Interactions Inc., Newfoundland Broadcasting Co. Ltd.

Administrative law: The Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission is seeking to impose a “value for signal” regime to allow a private local TV station to negotiate with cable TV service providers for the right to retransmit its signals. The CRTC argued the existing model doesn’t reflect recent changes to the broadcasting business environment so it asked the Federal Court of Appeal if it has the jurisdiction to impose this regime under the Broadcasting Act. The judges were unable to reach a consensus.

April 18 — Federal Court — Teva Canada Ltd. v. Pfizer Canada Inc.

Property law: This case relates to a patent dispute. Pfizer received a patent for compounds used in the manufacturing of Viagra. Teva applied for a notice of compliance to produce a generic version of Viagra, claiming the patent was invalid. The Federal Court judge ruled against Teva. The Federal Court of Appeal then dismissed the appeal. There is a sealing order in the case.

April 19 — Quebec — R. v. Suganthini Mayuran

Criminal law: Suganthini Mayuran was convicted of the second-degree murder of her sister-in-law. The majority of the Court of Appeal allowed her appeal and ordered a new trial because the trial judge failed to bring the defence of provocation to the jury’s attention.

At 9:45 a.m. on April 18, the SCC will also release its rulings in the following appeals, which all involve the law of jurisdiction:

1. Club Resorts Ltd. v. Anna Charron (Ont.) (Civil)

2. Club Resorts Ltd. v. Morgan Van Breda (Ont.) (Civil)

3. Richard C. Breeden v. Conrad Black (Ont.) (Civil)

4. Les éditions Écosociété Inc. v. Banro Corp. (Ont.) (Civil)