Court Refuses To Hear Corporate-Veil Case

Further to our January 26, 2015 post about recent attempts to hold Canadian parent companies liable for the actions of their foreign subsidiaries, last week the British Columbia Supreme Court declined jurisdiction to hear one such case brought against Tahoe Resources Inc. ("Tahoe") by a group of Guatemalan citizens. The court concluded that Guatemala was the clearly more appropriate forum for the action.

Background

As readers may recall, the facts in Garcia v. Tahoe Resources Inc., 2015 BCSC 2045, concerned the actions of mine security personnel at the Escobal mine in Guatemala. The mine is owned by two subsidiaries of Tahoe. In April 2013, the mine was the site of protests, which were forcibly broken up by mine security personnel. The plaintiffs were all participants in those protests who alleged that they had been shot or otherwise injured in the incident.