(Image: Christopher Drost)
I believe in the judicial system.
All stories relating to lawsuits
The Trump Tower may be in trouble with the Ontario Securities Commission
(Image: Facebook)
Already embroiled in a legal skirmish with buyers hoping to get their deposits back, Talon International, the developer of Toronto’s Trump Tower, has also caught the unwanted attention of the Ontario Securities Commission. In 2004, the commission excused Talon from some of the more onerous conditions (such as filing a prospectus) normally imposed on companies taking investment offerings public. The exemption came with instructions: Talon was to market the condo-hotel units as spaces to stay in or visit, rather than lucrative investment opportunities, and it couldn’t provide buyers with revenue or cost projections. The now more than 50 investors seeking to renege on their contracts have come forward to claim Talon did exactly that, flashing spreadsheets that touted the revenue-generating potential of the units—projections that haven’t been realized, since the hotel’s occupancy is hovering below 50 per cent. The commission says it’s investigating, leaving the door open for regulatory action. Whoever thought the tower’s falling glass days would be the easy ones? [Toronto Star]
The Trump Tower’s developer tries to subdue angry buyers—by suing them
Trouble keeps cropping up for Talon International, the developer of Toronto’s Trump International Hotel and Tower. First, sales of luxury units were slower than expected, and then there were a couple of pesky issues with falling glass; now, the company has launched lawsuits against buyers of condo-hotel units to force them to close their deals. Since February, dozens of investors have tried to renege on final payments and get back their deposits. They say their agreements shouldn’t stand because costs like maintenance fees and property taxes are far higher than Talon’s projections (one pegged the hike at 40 per cent) because the hotel, whose revenues were supposed to offset those costs, is underperforming. Talon is hoping the court will rule that buyers were responsible for assessing the risks of the purchase before signing up. The bigger question remains, though: Will Donald find a way to turn this controversy into a reality TV show? [Toronto Star]
Why Apple’s victory over Samsung is a potential boon for RIM
With Apple’s billion-dollar legal victory over Samsung dominating tech news this week, we wondered how the outcome of the patent lawsuit would affect Research in Motion. Turns out we weren’t alone on that front. Here’s the consensus: the ruling potentially benefits RIM, Nokia and other companies that don’t use Google’s Android operating system. Basically, Samsung’s U.S. market share could falter as it faces a court ban on selling eight of its models there; moreover, other Android manufacturers will need to take extra time before releasing new products to ensure they don’t infringe on Apple’s patents (although, to be fair, most of the infringements were Samsung-specific). Finally, the ruling reinforces the value of tech sector patents, of which RIM owns a large portfolio. The main point of uncertainty for the Canadian tech giant is the same one that’s been plaguing RIM for months—namely, whether the company can get BlackBerry 10 out quickly enough to capitalize on this opportunity.
Women accuse G20 police of equating unruly leg hair with unruly behaviour
During the G20 Summit in Toronto, being a lady with hairy legs was enough to attract police attention—that’s what a group of Hamilton women say, anyway. They’re among seven people who have filed a $1.4-million claim against police, saying they were stopped outside while exiting a Yonge Street restaurant. One woman also alleges she was sexually assaulted during a roadside strip search. Although none of the claims have been proven in court, an investigation by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director found evidence that at least one policeman, Constable James Ure, noticed the furry lower limbs. In his arrest notes, he wrote that “all parties appear to be protesters; back packs; clothing and females all have hairy legs.” The suit could be the last in the wave of litigation over police actions during the summit—the two-year limitation period ran out in late June, just after this suit was filed. [CBC News]
The Cult of Pastor Song: a religious sex scandal in Toronto’s Korean community
The sex scandal consuming Toronto’s Korean community began when six international students said they were repeatedly gang-raped by members of their small church. The accused allege that their eccentric pastor brainwashed the women to deflect attention from his own transgressions
Holy orders: Jae Kap Song, the founder and pastor of Jesus First, encouraged his flock to wear church uniforms and live together in six shared apartments
One July day in 2007, an 18-year-old woman checked into her Toronto-bound flight at South Korea’s Incheon Airport. She was travelling light—she had with her one suitcase containing clothes for a range of seasons, some books and a favourite brand of face cream. She had been living with her grandparents in South Korea and was joining her mother, who had split with her father and moved to Toronto to study acupuncture three years earlier.
A court-ordered publication ban prevents me from identifying the woman, but I’ll call her Yeri. Her plan was to learn English at one of Toronto’s hagwons, Korean-run cram schools that cater to the thousands of young men and women who come to Canada on student visas each year. With command of the language, she would get into a better college in South Korea and ultimately, her family hoped, receive coveted job offers at multinationals.
From the airport, Yeri headed to a Bloor and Islington apartment building where her mother lived in one of six units leased by members of Jesus First, a Korean Presbyterian church run by a pastor named Jae Kap Song. Her mother belonged to the church and expected her to join, too. They’d share one of the apartment’s bedrooms. A second bedroom was shared by two male members of Jesus First.
Faulty towers: who’s to blame for condoland’s falling glass, leaky walls and multi-million-dollar lawsuits
Jan Gandhi and Omar Jabri share a love of big-city life: the people, the architecture, the fashion, the logarithmic bustle of human energy that comes from high-density, high-rise living. They first met as articling students with different Bay Street law firms, introduced by mutual friends. Together they moved to New York, where Gandhi worked as in-house counsel for MTV and Jabri as an intellectual property lawyer, and they lived in an apartment in Chelsea. Gandhi became addicted to flash-sale websites, filling her wardrobe with deeply discounted designer fashions. Flash sales are enormously popular in New York. She saw an underserved market in Toronto, so she hatched a plan to return and launch her own site.
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Conrad Black (armed with lawyers, of course) fights to keep his Order of Canada
(Image: United States Marshals Service)
Post-incarceration, Conrad Black has turned his love of litigious matters into a hobby. The most recent fight for the “oppressed” baron started last year, when Black learned that his pesky conviction for fraud meant he could lose his Order of Canada (and you know he doesn’t want to stop wearing that cool Order of Canada pin). Now Black is taking the council reviewing his membership to court because he wants them to hear him out in person—according to his lawyers, Black’s case is too complex to be sussed out through written arguments. If Black, a noted and long-winded writer, can’t plead his case via text, we’re afraid to imagine how epically wordy his courtroom speeches will be. [Globe and Mail]
Conrad Black says Random House caused him $1.25 million worth of suffering
(Image: UrsaSharp)
Conrad Black must love lawyers as much as Barbara Amiel loves her Hungarian kuvasz dogs. In the midst of working through a few leftover Hollinger lawsuits—and one of his own against British author Tom Bower for his
biography
Bell Mobility faces a class-action lawsuit over its pre-paid wireless services
Bad news for Bell Mobility and parent company BCE: they have been served with a $100-million class-action lawsuit over wireless services—a division that has been a cash cow for the company in recent months. Bell Mobility customer Celia Sankar says expiry dates on pre-paid wireless services are illegal, arguing that the payments are defined as “gift cards” under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act and therefore shouldn’t have a best-before date that allows the company to seize unused credits. If the class-action suit is allowed to proceed, Sankar will represent anyone in Ontario who has used Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobile Canada and Solo Mobile pre-paid wireless services since May 4, 2010 (i.e., a boatload of people).
[Canadian Press]
A new report says the RCMP weren’t the bad guys in G20 kettling incidents
(Image: Ronnie Yip from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
The OPP, the Toronto police and the RCMP may all have been blamed for the “kettling” tactics at the G20 protest that launched lawsuits and had Amnesty International crying foul, but a new report suggests that the usual suspect, “confusion,” was to blame (well, more so than the RCMP anyway). The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has spent the past year looking into the Mounties’ role in G20 policing. It has found that the Major Incident Command Centre, run by the Toronto police, was in charge of police tactics outside the summit centre, though OPP commanders were in charge of the front-line operation at Queen West and Spadina when the RCMP showed up to help cordon off the site. Apparently, kettling isn’t part of the RCMP playbook, but the Mounties deferred to the MICC while their commander searched for the OPP officer in charge for two hours, and was eventually told that the MICC wanted “everyone arrested.” Still confused over who’s to blame? There’s another report coming next month from former justice John Morden that should answer a lot of questions about the actions of all the forces involved. [Globe and Mail]
Conrad Black’s post-jail plans: chatting with Peter Mansbridge and shunning beer
(Image: Charles LeBlanc)
Conrad Black is back in Toronto, and so far his plans sound pretty low-key for a baron. In an email to the Globe and Mail, Black wrote that his post-jail life will include updating his book and trying to lose some weight. He’s also trying to sort out a court case with U.S. tax authorities, suing British writer Tom Bower for $2.5 million over Bower’s biography of Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, and wrapping up a few lingering Hollinger lawsuits. Not on the itinerary: buying back the National Post (which he launched in 1998), entering the newspaper business again or giving interviews to anyone in Canada but Peter Mansbridge. Black also refused the Globe and Mail’s long-standing invitation for a beer in characteristically verbose style: “I only drink the odd glass of wine and am trying to lose weight, so the forum you proposed, though appreciated, is a bit dated after these years that have passed.” [Globe and Mail]
RIM headache number 4,572 (or thereabouts): Nokia is suing for patent infringement
Despite the fact that Nokia and Research in Motion have each seen their smartphone profits eviscerated by Apple and Google, there’s no sign of an underdog alliance. In fact, Nokia just filed several lawsuits against RIM (as well as HTC and ViewSonic), saying the companies infringed on up to 45 of its patents for features like dual-function antennas, multimode radios, conversational message display and data encryption. It’s yet another legal hassle for RIM, which is already dealing with one patent lawsuit over swiping and double tapping technology and another for design and data transmission patents. And though tech companies spend a lot of time suing each other over patents, Nokia has already proven its courtroom chops, having won a patent dispute against Apple. Given RIM’s tumbling stock price following its BB10 preview, the last thing the company needs now is a pricey day in court. [Reuters]
The cop kicking the crowd in that infamous G20 photo finally has a name—thanks to another protester lawsuit
Here’s a familiar tale: a Toronto cop with his face covered and no badge displayed (allegedly!) beats up some G20 protesters, a police complaints watchdog deems the officer used excessive force, and the protesters launch a lawsuit. That’s the short version of why partners Nikos Kapetaneas and Caitlin Morgan are each suing the Police Services Board for $25,000, claiming they were kicked, punched, beaten with batons and pepper-sprayed. Kapetaneas is better known as the unlucky protester in this picture, while the police officer behind that famous boot-to-the-shoulder is apparently Constable Oliver Simpson, who was also named in the Adam Nobody case. If you want to keep track, the Toronto Star has catalogued all the G20 lawsuits launched to date. The short version of that story: the list is very long. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
Trust issues: Drake being sued by ex-girlfriend
Drake now holds the record for the most No. 1’s on Billboard’s Rap Songs chart (he has 11), but he’s got some major ex-girlfriend issues to work through before he can relax and celebrate. Drizzy’s former flame Ericka Lee, who says she’s the mystery woman heard at the beginning of the song “Marvin’s Room,” is suing Drake for recognition as co-writer of the song, damages and a share of profits. Lee alleges she has a text message from Drake that reads, “U basically made that song,” but after the pair split and she tried to seek royalties, things got ugly and she had to hire a lawyer. Drake does credit Lee as the song’s “Syren Lyric Muse,” but it would seem that shout-out just isn’t good enough for her (or a spell-checker, for that matter).
