Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Law of professions – Barristers and solicitors – Solicitor-client privilege – Foreign bankruptcy Trustees seeking disclosure of information from bankrupt’s Canadian law firm – After Maranda, does the distinction between evidence of communications and evidence of facts continue to apply in the privilege analysis? – Is all information possessed by a lawyer flowing from the relationship between solicitor and client presumptively privileged? – Are law firm’s trust ledgers presumptively privileged? – To what extent do parties seeking access to lawyers’ files have to exhaust other avenues of obtaining that information?

The applicant, Mr. Luu, was petitioned into bankruptcy in Hong Kong in February, 2012. He was also involved in litigation in British Columbia and was represented by Murray Jamieson LLP. The respondents were appointed Trustees in the Hong Kong bankruptcy proceedings. In April 2012, Mr. Luu made a solemn affirmation in the bankruptcy proceedings that his assets had a value of $7.15 million. In February, 2013, the Trustees became aware that Mr. Luu had been awarded judgment in excess of US$3 million in the British Columbia action. The Trustees contacted the law firms representing the defendants, advised them of Mr. Luu’s Hong Kong bankruptcy and learned that the law firms had paid the judgment award into the Murray Jamieson trust account, by way of three payments in August and September, 2011 and June, 2012. The Trustees then contacted Murray Jamieson to determine, inter alia, whether the law firm continued to hold any of those monies in their trust account on behalf of Mr. Luu. Murray Jamieson refused to divulge any information on the basis of solicitor-client privilege. The Trustees sought an order requiring the firm to disclose accounting information relating to Mr. Luu.