Case information

Contract — Contract of loan — Creditor and debtor — Whether Court of Appeal erred in holding that applicant Stéphane Harvey is debtor jointly with Gestion Stéphane Harvey inc. under contract in issue.

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.

In August 2013, the applicant Stéphane Harvey, a lawyer practising largely in commercial litigation, proposed that the respondent Patrick Guay, an entrepreneur with whom he had had a professional relationship for a few years, apply for the position of honorary consul for Burkina Faso in Québec. Mr. Guay turned down the proposal. In October 2013, Mr. Harvey invited Mr. Guay to his office for a meeting, during which Mr. Guay agreed to lend Mr. Harvey $100,000 to finance the cost of moving his office and setting up in new premises. Mr. Harvey also asked Mr. Guay once again whether he would agree to apply for the honorary consul position. Mr. Guay allegedly agreed in the end to apply, provided that the performance of the consul’s duties required little time and that there was no financial commitment on his part. Mr. Harvey allegedly reassured Mr. Guay on this subject before setting in motion the process of applying for the position at the end of October 2013. In early November 2013, in parallel with that process, Mr. Harvey presented Mr. Guay with the agreement he had prepared for the $100,000 loan. Both parties signed the agreement at that time. On June 2, 2015, Mr. Guay informed Mr. Harvey that he was withdrawing his application for the honorary consul position after never receiving any official document confirming his appointment, which he had been told of in December 2014. On November 17, 2015, Mr. Guay informed Mr. Harvey by email that the $100,000 loan would not be renewed, and he therefore asked Mr. Harvey to repay it in full by the maturity date, December 15, 2015. On December 10, 2015, Mr. Harvey emailed Mr. Guay his invoice for lump-sum reference fees following his resignation as honorary consul and informed him that he had taken into account the $100,000 repayment required. On December 15, 2015, the applicants filed an originating application in the Superior Court, claiming $113,718.75 in fees, disbursements and damages from the respondents. In response, the respondents filed a defence and a cross-application in which they claimed full repayment of the loan with interest, damages and legal representation fees. The Superior Court dismissed the originating application and allowed the defence and the cross-application in part. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.