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By: Investigation Counsel PC

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Norman Groot

Latest from Investigation Counsel

At Investigation Counsel, we receive inquiries from fraud victims, often through the internet, requesting information on alternatives to traditional civil recovery due to the cost of private litigation. One such request was for information as to whether recoveries are viable by making a claim under Ontario’s Civil Remedies Act. In July 2017, we published a blog post entitled what Fraud Victims Should Know About Recovery Through the Civil Remedies Act . This post provides an…
In our prior blog, Why the Criminal Process is Secondary in Fraud Recovery – Part I – Criminal Search Rights Override Victim Recovery Rights, we summarized the recently released case of  R. v. Tashanna Mullings, 2019 ONSC 2408, published by the Ontario Courts. The bottom line of that case is that fraud victims need to understand that the Canadian criminal justice system, in its application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, does…
This blog summarizes a recently published decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, R. v. Tashanna Mullings, 2019 ONSC 2408, which once again demonstrates why fraud victims are, in most cases, well advised to withhold making a criminal case in fraud cases at least until such time as there is no reasonable prospect of recovery. Fraud victims need to understand that the Canadian criminal justice system, in its application of the Canadian Charter of…
Pleading fraud is a more specialized task than pleading other kinds of allegations. According Rule 25.06 of Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure, fraud must be pleaded with particulars of material facts due to the serious nature of the allegations. This is a topic we at Investigation Counsel PC have written about previously. You may access that blog post here. This blog summarizes a recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice which assists…
This blog summarizes a recently published decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal which somewhat clarifies the where the line is drawn between a lawyer’s fair and zealous advocacy for their client and their liability for civil fraud for deceiving the Court and opposing counsel with false statements. In our fraud recovery litigation, from time to time, we encounter lawyers for alleged fraudsters who make positive statements on behalf of their clients with the intention…
At Investigation Counsel PC, we are often asked by victims of fraud for advice with respect to negotiating settlements in fraud actions. To state the obvious, fraud victims often have a well-founded skepticism that the defendant they settled with cannot be trusted to fulfill their settlement obligations honourably. In 2018 we acted as counsel for Kuwait investors who lost $1.8M to a British Columbia based business associate. At the eve of trial, a $2.7M settlement…
On September 6, 2018, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench released its decision in TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. v Ghebrezghi, 2018 ABQB 646 (“Ghebrezghi”). This case was highly relevant to one of our cases due to the similar factual matrix. In Ghebrezghi, the investor rolled the dice in a trial against TD Waterhouse and had his entire case dismissed with costs to be ordered against him.  In our case, the investor took a more conservative…
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On June 11, 2018, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kitchener released its decision in the criminal sentencing of investment advisor Daniel Reeve: R. v. Reeve, 2018 ONSC 3744. The Court handed out the first maximum sentence for fraud in Canadian history since the legislative changes in 2004 that increased the maximum jail sentence to 14 years. What follows in this article are direct quotes from the trial and sentencing decisions. The statements themselves…
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Can a Complaint to the OSC Prohibit a Criminal Prosecution? On May 29, 2018, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released its decision in R. v. Vuong and Quach, 2018 ONSC 3348. This case is helpful to fraud victims in terms of the information it provides about the interplay between police (criminal) and regulatory (securities commission) investigations, the appropriate body to which to make a complaint, and when this should be done. At the end…
Liability of Agents in Loan Transactions In cases where fraud is not alleged and where only breach of contract is asserted, whether a transaction is characterized as a loan or an investment can be critical to whether judgment will be issued. If a transaction is viewed as an investment where the investor took on the risk, there may be no cause of action. If the transaction is viewed as a loan, the lender may have…