Honesty Is The Best Policy, Again – Antunes v. Limen Structures Ltd

For some time, the employment relationship has been held to a standard of good faith and fair dealing, at least in respect to the administration of the employment contract and especially upon termination of employment. Cases from the Supreme Court of Canada such as Wallace and Keays v. Honda have left the law of employment with a residual philosophy that fair dealing is expected of employers. All of which sounds sensible and kind of obvious to those who manage human resources. This is not so clear in the world of commercial contracts and recent developments in this area may have repercussions for employers.

Only recently was the organizing principle of good faith in contractual relations generally recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada. In the 2014 Bhasin v. Hrynew decision, the Court introduced a general duty of "honest contractual performance" that was expressly stated to apply to all categories of contractual relations.