As anticipated, Justice Morawetz agreed with the proposal that the current stay on tobacco litigation be extended by an additional month before he heard a request from Canada's three large tobacco companies for an even longer delay.  His endorsement of the idea to push the hearing from October 1st to October 31st was released last night and made public this morning on the monitor's websites.  This time, his agreement comes with a kicker: he expects there to be a votable plan by year's end. "The court has every expectation that matters will progress such that meetings of cr ..read more

 Turns out that Justice Morawetz will no longer be asked to grant Canada's tobacco companies with a further six month suspension of the lawsuits against them. The hearing that had been scheduled for October 1st has been adjourned. Instead of asking for a six month stay, the companies are being granted a one-month extension. This is being done without any hearing or public viewing of the decision-making.  The next day on which day the parties to this long-standing insolvency case will assemble again before the judge is now set for Hallowe'en.  This decision was made quasi-public ..read more

It's easy to speculate but hard to know what is going on behind the curtain that has veiled discussions between tobacco companies and the Canadian provinces and smokers who are suing them. Another hearing before the Ontario Court has now been set. On October 1st at 9:00 a.m, Justice Morawetz will hear motions from the companies (BAT-Imperial Tobacco Canada, JTI-Macdonald and PMI-Rothmans, Benson & Hedges) for an additional six months protection from their creditors -- up until March 31, 2025. JTI request for another 6 month stay extension An agreement to this request wo ..read more

After months of secrecy on top of decades of silence, one of the provinces suing tobacco companies for redress has indicated how it will spend the funds -- and hinted at how much it expects it will receive. This breakthrough was reported this morning on CBC News, as part of a report on a speech to a party conference by recently-elected Manitoba Prmier Wab Kinew.  As detailed in the story (partially reprinted below), Canada's middle province expects to receive from "hundreds of millions to half a billion dollars."  Because Manitoba's claim did not quantify the damages it was seeking ..read more

This morning permission was granted to extend insolvency protection to tobacco multinationals into a sixth year.  Little information on the details of the settlement under discussion among the companies and the governments and smokers who are suing them was provided during the half hour hearing before Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morowetz. In quick succession, lawyers for Imperial Tobacco (British American Tobacco), Rothmans, Benson & Hedges (Philip Morris International) and JTI-Macdonald (Japan Tobacco) stood to affirm that the companies were acting "in good faith ..read more

Those who tuned in at 10:30 Wednesday morning to the video-link of the Ontario Superior Court session before Justice Geoffrey B. Morawetz expecting to see another rubber stamping process in the tobacco companies' CCAA proceedings were in for a big surprise.  This was Justice Morawetz' first appearance on these proceedings, and he used the opportunity to force a new process on the proceedings. As well as granting the tobacco companies' unopposed request for another 6 month extension to their litigation, he is imposing an arbitration-like process to develop a road-map out. The 'neutral' mo ..read more

When the parties to the long-going insolvency proceedings for Canada's tobacco companies convene on September 27th , a new judge will be deciding whether to allow yet another 6-month time out on the lawsuits facing Canada's tobacco companies. Ontario's chief justice, the Hon. Geoffrey B. Morawetz  assumed responsibility for this file after Justice Thomas McEwen retired this summer. Already some of the paperwork has been filed in advance of this hearing by the three tobacco companies and also by lawyers for Quebec smokers whose court award of $13+ billion has lain in limbo since these ..read more

After a loooong wait, Justice McEwen issued his ruling yesterday on the request by Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation to be allowed to ask for a seat at the mediation table. Last fall they initiated a request to appoint a representative for the "Future Tobacco Harm Stakeholders" -- Canadian smokers not otherwise represented in the settlement discussions.  His answer was a firm "no". No matter the merits of the organization, their request came too late. They did not act with "due diligence in the circumstances" and waited too long to make this request. Nor has anything changed to justify ..read more

Yesterday Justice McEwen made public that he will be retiring at the end of June and that "Chief Justice Morawetz has agreed to assume case management of these CCAA matters ..read more

This post is an update of a near-identical bulletin sent a year ago. Little has changed. Today Justice McEwan of Ontario's Superior Court was asked for the eighth time to extend the insolvency protection orders under which Canada's 3 main tobacco companies are maintaining "business as usual" while trying to negotiate an end to the lawsuits filed against them. None of the lawyers representing the provinces and smokers who are suing the companies raised any objections, and after a 15-minute hearing the extensions were granted.  In most respects, there appear to be no new developments ..read more