CASL's Private Right of Action Becomes Effective July 1, 2017

Canada's Anti-Spam Law ("CASL") came into effect on July 1, 2014. Of key importance for financial institutions is CASL's regime of rules and enforcement mechanisms intended to prohibit unsolicited or misleading commercial electronic messages ("CEMs"), violations of which will soon be enforceable by way of private litigation.

A CEM is any kind of electronic message (for instance, an e-mail, text message or social media message) sent to an electronic address if one of the message's purposes is to encourage the recipient to participate in a commercial activity. While there are certain limited exceptions, the CEM rules apply to a CEM if the computer system sending or accessing the CEM is in Canada, regardless of where the sender or recipient is located. The CEM rules apply even if a CEM is sent to a single recipient.