On November 17, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada (the
"SCC") released its decision in Royal Bank of Canada v. Trang, 2016 SCC 50.
This case involved the proper interpretation of certain disclosure
exceptions in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act, S.C. 2000, c.5
("PIPEDA").
Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Côté
overturned the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision and ordered
the Bank of Nova Scotia ("Scotiabank") to disclose the
debtors' mortgage discharge statement to the Royal Bank of
Canada ("RBC") for two reasons: (1) such disclosure was
required to comply with a court order pursuant to s. 7(3) of
PIPEDA; and, (2) the debtors had impliedly consented to
such disclosure. The SCC held that each of these two reasons would
have been enough on their own to allow the appeal.
