Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Interpretation of the Fund Regulation: whether the Fonds d’aide’s levy on a reliquat under article 1(1°)(c) of the Regulation must be a single percentage on the whole balance or a progressive, tiered calculation by brackets.
• Tension between literal and teleological interpretation: how far courts may go in privileging purpose, coherence and symmetry over the ordinary wording of the Regulation and its enabling statute.
• Reliquat calculation and figures: determination of the final undistributed balance (320,998.37 $) after use of Ticketmaster credits, redistribution attempts and payment of fees, as the base for the Fonds’ percentage and charitable cy-près payments.
• Risk of “threshold manipulation”: consideration and ultimate rejection of the trial judge’s concern that parties could structure or slightly reduce a reliquat to fall under a lower bracket and thereby diminish the Fonds’ levy.
• Weight of consistent judicial practice: reliance on decades of Superior Court practice applying a single percentage to the entire reliquat as a contextual guide to the proper interpretation of the Regulation.
• Financing mandate of the Fonds: assessment of the public policy goal of ensuring the Fonds’ self-funding through prélèvements while still preserving meaningful indirect benefits to class members via charitable distributions.

Factual background of the Ticketmaster class action

The litigation arose from a consumer class action in Quebec targeting the ticketing practices of Ticketmaster in relation to show tickets. The representative plaintiff, Steve Abihsira, alleged that Ticketmaster had breached articles 224 and 236.1 of the Loi sur la protection du consommateur (Consumer Protection Act) in how it advertised and charged prices for event tickets, particularly in relation to additional fees embedded in the final sale price. The action was authorized as a class action on behalf of a large group of consumers who had purchased tickets through Ticketmaster’s platforms in Quebec. Their core complaint was that the ticket prices and fees did not comply with the disclosure and pricing rules under the Consumer Protection Act, and that consumers had overpaid or been misled as to the true cost of the tickets.
In December 2017, before a trial on the merits, Ticketmaster and the class reached a settlement. Under that agreement, Ticketmaster committed to provide a total compensatory value of 1,125,000 $, calculated on the basis of an assumed 125,000 class members at 9 $ per member. To implement this, the settlement provided for credits to be applied to members’ electronic Ticketmaster accounts for a limited period. However, to reflect payment of class counsel fees, it was agreed that only 6 $ per member (rather than the full 9 $) would actually be made available as a credit. The settlement also expressly acknowledged that the Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives (the Fonds) would receive whatever prélèvement it was entitled to under the Règlement sur le pourcentage prélevé par le Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives (the Regulation).
The settlement terms were later amended twice as more information emerged about the size and characteristics of the class. First, to reflect a revised class size of approximately 137,040 members, Ticketmaster increased the overall value of the settlement to 1,233,000 $. Second, the parties agreed to exclude about 21,846 members whose email addresses were invalid or inactive, and to adjust the benefit structure. Under the amended arrangement, 7 $ out of the 9 $ per member would be credited to each eligible member’s account, and the period during which those credits could be used was extended. Automatic annual reminders were contemplated so that members would have repeated opportunities to redeem their credits. The settlement also addressed what would happen to unused credits at the end of the redemption period: any remaining amounts corresponding to unused credits would form a reliquat. After the Fonds had taken the prélèvement to which it was entitled under the Regulation, the balance of that reliquat would be paid to one or more charitable organizations, chosen and approved by the court in accordance with Quebec class action practice.

Evolution of the reliquat and distribution attempts

The Superior Court approved the settlement in November 2019. An administrator was appointed to implement the distribution system, manage the credits, notify members, and eventually report back on the status of unused funds.
By January 2024, the period during which members could use their Ticketmaster credits had fully expired. When the parties returned to the Superior Court, the judge found that a very large number of members—93,291—had still not used their 7 $ credit. This produced a substantial unclaimed remainder: a reliquat of 653,017 $, which, strikingly, exceeded by more than 50% the total amount initially paid by Ticketmaster to fund the credits.
The parties, excluding the Fonds, proposed a further redistribution mechanism: using part of the reliquat to send a 5 $ Interac transfer to each member who had not used their credit, followed by a final calculation of any remaining reliquat and of the Fonds’ prélèvement. The Fonds opposed this proposal, but the judge nevertheless authorized this additional redistribution step, to be followed by calculation of the final reliquat and the deduction of the Fonds’ percentage. In that interim ruling, the judge also noted, in obiter, that the wording of the Regulation seemed to him to suggest a progressive, bracketed method of calculating the Fonds’ prélèvement, in which different percentages would apply to different “slices” of the reliquat.
In May 2024, once the Interac process had been implemented, the parties returned with a second proposal to further redistribute what remained. This time, the Superior Court judge refused. He held that the proposed second redistribution would create an unfair disparity in the treatment of class members, depending on whether they had responded at different stages, and concluded that it was not appropriate. At that stage, considering the distributions already made and the admin­istrative costs, the final reliquat was fixed at 320,998.37 $. The judge directed the parties to propose one or more charities that could receive this balance, once the Fonds’ prélèvement had been paid.

The legal framework for the Fonds’ prélèvement

The remaining dispute did not concern Ticketmaster’s underlying liability, which had been resolved by the settlement, but rather the internal mechanics of how the final reliquat would be divided between the Fonds and charitable beneficiaries. This turned on the interpretation of the Fonds’ enabling legislation and the Regulation.
The Fonds is a public body created in 1978 alongside the modern class action regime in Quebec. Its statutory mandate is to promote access to justice by financing class actions and disseminating information about them. Over time, the Fonds has become almost entirely self-funded. Historically, it depended heavily on government subsidies; today, it relies primarily on two statutory mechanisms: (i) subrogation or reimbursement when a funded class action is successful, and (ii) prélèvements—percentage levies—on reliquats (unclaimed class action funds) or on liquidated individual claims, even in cases where it did not finance the action.
Articles 38 and 42 of the Loi sur le Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives authorize the government to determine, by regulation, the percentage the Fonds may take from a reliquat established under articles 596 and 597 C.C.P. and from other liquidated claims. The Regulation implementing this authority contains a single, detailed article, article 1, which fixes three separate sets of percentages: one scale for reliquats established under article 596 C.C.P. (where a collective distribution mechanism was used but proved partly ineffective in practice), another scale for reliquats under article 597 C.C.P. (where individual distribution is impracticable and the court orders a global cy-près scheme), and a third scale for other liquidated individual claims.
For a reliquat like this one, established under article 596 C.C.P., article 1(1°) of the Regulation states that the Fonds’ prélèvement is:

• 50% on any reliquat less than 100,000 $;
• 60% on any reliquat exceeding 100,000 $ but less than 200,000 $;
• 70% on any reliquat exceeding 200,000 $ but less than 500,000 $; and
• 90% on any reliquat exceeding 500,000 $.
  The Regulation uses similar—but decreasing—percentages for article 597 reliquats and small percentages for individual liquidated claims under article 592 C.C.P.

The competing methods of calculation before the Superior Court

Once the reliquat had been fixed at 320,998.37 $, the only remaining legal question in the Superior Court was how to apply article 1(1°) of the Regulation. The Fonds argued that the wording and longstanding practice were clear: once the amount of the reliquat is known, the applicable bracket is selected and a single percentage is applied to the entire reliquat. Because 320,998.37 $ is more than 200,000 $ but less than 500,000 $, the Fonds claimed 70% of the whole reliquat, i.e., 224,698.86 $.
Ticketmaster took the opposite view and persuaded the trial judge that the Regulation implied a progressive scale. On its reading, the reliquat had to be broken into segments corresponding to each bracket, and a different percentage applied to each “slice.” Concretely, Ticketmaster proposed: 50% on the first 100,000 $, 60% on the next 100,000 $ (100,000 $ – 200,000 $), and 70% on the remaining 120,998.37 $ (from 200,000 $ to the final amount of 320,998.37 $). This produced a total prélèvement for the Fonds of 194,698.86 $, 30,000 $ less than what the Fonds claimed.
The Superior Court judge accepted Ticketmaster’s analysis. He reasoned that applying a single percentage at each bracket’s threshold could create arbitrary “cliffs” and potential abuses. His illustration was a reliquat just below 100,000 $ compared to one just above: under the Fonds’ method, a marginal change of only a few dollars in the reliquat could generate a significant jump in the prélèvement. To avoid these perceived distorsions and preserve coherence with the structure of the scales in article 1(1°) and 1(2°), he concluded that the Regulation should be read as imposing a progressive calculation under article 596 C.C.P. and a regressive one under article 597 C.C.P.
Acting on this interpretation, the judge ordered that 194,698.86 $ be paid to the Fonds, and that the remaining balance be split equally between two charitable organizations: the Fondation de la Place des Arts and the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation. He also ordered costs against the Fonds, taking into account the Fonds’ opposition to the earlier redistribution proposal.

The issues on appeal and standard of review

The Fonds appealed to the Quebec Court of Appeal. It challenged both the interpretation of the Regulation and the order condemning it to pay costs, although the cost issue was secondary and depended on the outcome of the interpretive question.
On appeal, the core legal issue was whether article 1(1°) of the Regulation is to be read as requiring:

• a single percentage applied to the entire reliquat according to the bracket in which the total figure falls (the Fonds’ position); or
• a progressive calculation applying successive percentages to successive portions of the reliquat (Ticketmaster’s and the trial judge’s position).
  Because the issue was purely one of statutory and regulatory interpretation, the Court of Appeal applied the correctness standard. It had to decide de novo what the Regulation means in light of the modern approach to interpretation, which combines textual, contextual and purposive analysis while keeping the text as the central anchor.

The Court of Appeal’s analysis of text, context and purpose

The Court of Appeal accepted that modern interpretation requires attention to text, context and purpose, but found that the trial judge had largely skipped the textual step. The appellate judges emphasized that both the enabling statute and the Regulation repeatedly refer to “le pourcentage” that the Fonds prélève on “le reliquat” established under articles 596 or 597 C.C.P., and that article 1 speaks of a percentage taken “sur tout reliquat” within a given bracket. In ordinary language, this points to a single percentage applied to the total balance, not to splitting the balance into notional portions and treating each slice differently.
The Court acknowledged that the wording is not stylistically perfect—there are minor drafting flaws—but considered that these do not obscure its core meaning. In particular, to justify a progressive calculation, one would effectively have to read into the Regulation expressions like “on the portion of the balance up to X” or “on the portion exceeding Y,” which the government did not write. The appellate judges reiterated a basic canon of interpretation: courts should be slow to add words that the legislature or regulator chose not to include, especially in a financial and public-law scheme of this kind.
Turning to context and purpose, the Court reviewed the legislative history and the evolution of the Fonds’ financing. It noted that the prélèvement on reliquats is now the Fonds’ single most important source of income and was consciously designed to ensure its autonomy and capacity to fund class actions. Parliamentary debates in 1978 had already recognized the possibility that the Fonds could, in some cases, receive high percentages, even up to 90%, but the legislature had decided to leave the detailed calibration to regulations, which were later adopted. The Court also noted the doctrinal criticisms that the current percentages may be too high in light of the Fonds’ strong financial position, but held that such policy arguments cannot override clear regulatory text. If rebalancing is needed, it is for the government, not the courts, to amend the Regulation.
The judges also found weight in the consistent judicial practice. For decades, Superior Court judges have applied article 1 by choosing a single percentage for the entire reliquat based on its overall amount, in both article 596 and article 597 situations. While these earlier cases did not expressly debate the interpretive issue, the Court considered this uniform practice as a strong indicator of how the Regulation has been understood in the legal community and as a factor of predictability and legal stability. Changing course would disrupt expectations built up around the financing of the Fonds and the structuring of settlements in class actions.

Rejection of the “progressive scale” and of the abuse concern

The Court of Appeal squarely rejected the trial judge’s concern that a single-percentage reading could invite abuses through strategic drafting of settlements or manipulation of reliquats. It reasoned that the reliquat is not a contractual figure that parties can casually adjust in their favour; it is determined after the settlement is approved, the notice and claims processes are complete, administration costs are known, and a detailed administration report is filed. At that stage, little room is left for parties to “shave” a reliquat by a few dollars in order to fall within a lower bracket.
Moreover, even if the bracket thresholds create some sharp transitions, such “cliffs” are a known feature of bracketed regimes and are not, by themselves, a sign of ambiguity that justifies rewriting the Regulation. The Court stressed that the modern interpretive approach does not authorize courts to alter a clear, if sometimes harsh, scheme simply because they dislike a potential outcome or can imagine hypothetical anomalies. In the absence of real-world abuse over more than 40 years of practice, the mere possibility of theoretical oddities was not sufficient to displace the ordinary meaning of the text.

Outcome of the appeal and final financial orders

Applying its interpretation, the Court of Appeal held that the Fonds was entitled to 70% of the entire reliquat of 320,998.37 $, under article 1(1°)(c) of the Regulation (reliquats over 200,000 $ and under 500,000 $). This produced a prélèvement of 224,698.86 $. The Court therefore allowed the appeal, set aside the Superior Court’s order adopting the progressive calculation, and substituted new dispositive paragraphs to align the judgment with its reading of the Regulation.
First, the Court ordered Concilia Services Inc., the settlement administrator, to pay 224,698.86 $ to the Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives within 30 days, representing the Fonds’ proper prélèvement at 70% of the reliquat. Second, it directed Concilia to pay the balance of the reliquat to the two previously designated charitable organizations: 48,149.75 $ to the Fondation de la Place des Arts and 48,149.76 $ to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation, the latter sum to be deposited into the “P.K.’s Helping Hand Fund.” These two payments, together with the Fonds’ prélèvement, exhaust the entire reliquat of 320,998.37 $.
Finally, the Court noted that it had already authorized, in an earlier appellate ruling, the payment of residual sums to those charitable organizations and simply took formal notice of that prior authorization. It then awarded costs of the appeal against the Ticketmaster entities, reflecting the Fonds’ success on the central interpretive issue. The exact quantum of legal costs was not specified in the reasons and will follow the usual process of taxation or assessment; it therefore cannot be determined precisely from the judgment. In overall outcome, the successful party on appeal was the Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives, which secured confirmation of its single-percentage interpretation and an order that it receive a total of 224,698.86 $ from the reliquat, plus its taxable costs as against the defendants.