Ontario Court Further Clarifies Limitation Period For Statutory Securities Class Actions

In "the latest sequel or prequel in what has turned out to be the case law equivalent of a horror-movie franchise", Justice Perell struck 11 of 14 statutory claims for secondary market misrepresentation in Kaynes v. BP PLC. This decision follows numerous other significant decisions considering the limitation period in the since-amended Part XXIII.1 of the Ontario Securities Act, which culminated in the Supreme Court's decision in a trilogy of cases, that we summarized here. In that trilogy, the Supreme Court held that under the previous version of the statute, leave must have been obtained to pursue the cause of action prior to the expiry of the three-year limitation period, but that leave could be granted nunc pro tunc in certain cases (e.g. where a notice of motion for leave had been served in time). The statute was subsequently amended to provide that the limitation is suspended on the filing of a notice of motion for leave to commence an action under that Part of