Leave To The Supreme Court Denied: Latest On Pre-Certification Stays In Multijurisdictional Class Actions

We previously discussed the Alberta Court of Appeal's decision in Ravvin v Canada Bread Company, Limited, 2020 ABCA 424, which arose out of an alleged packaged bread price-fixing conspiracy. Plaintiffs started class proceedings in multiple provinces but stays were granted in most actions in favour of a national class proceeding before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The defendants similarly moved to stay the two proposed class proceedings in Alberta on the basis that they overlapped with the Ontario proceedings, which were more advanced. The plaintiff opposed the stay arguing that the certification application needed to proceed first.

The Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the case management judge's decision to grant the stay of proceedings. In doing so, the Alberta Court of Appeal confirmed the jurisdiction of a case management judge to grant a stay of proceedings under section 5 of the Class Proceedings Act before hearing the certification application. In its