Ontario Court Shuts Down End-Runs On Letters Rogatory Into The US By Plaintiff Class Counsel

Perell J. of the Ontario Superior Court released a significant decision to commence the new year in a pre-certification motion in Mancinelli v Royal Bank of Canada, a $1 billion Ontario class action proceeding against several banks accused of price-fixing in foreign exchange markets. One of the plaintiffs had obtained on an ex parte basis in the US federal court in Manhattan a subpoena against a non-party, the market news service Bloomberg LP, in order to gather evidence for use in the Ontario litigation. In obtaining the subpoena, the plaintiff had attempted to circumvent the traditional – and typically cumbersome – route of obtaining letters rogatory from an Ontario court for enforcement through the US courts pursuant to principles of comity and reciprocity.