Highly Anticipated Supreme Court Decision In Securities Class Action Trilogy Released

In a case that has been anticipated as one of the top 5 corporate law decisions to watch for 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada held this morning that leave of the court to commence an action for secondary market misrepresentation under the Ontario Securities Act must be obtained within the prescribed three-year limitation period, and that the limitation period for obtaining leave is not tolled in circumstances where a class proceeding has been commenced. However, the court has the jurisdiction to grant "backdated" leave – an order nunc pro tunc – where the plaintiff is granted leave after the expiry of the limitation period but filed the leave motion prior to the expiry of the limitation period. The decision by a heavily divided Court came in a trilogy of cases – Green v. CIBC, Silver v. IMAX, and Celestica v. Millwright Regional Council of Ontario Pension Trust Fund – reported as CIBC v. Green ("CIBC").