While the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals have in recent years demanded rigorous scrutiny before authorizing certification of class actions, the Supreme Court of Canada has charted a different course. In a trio of recent decisions in antitrust class actions, Canada’s high court rejected key U.S. precedents on the scope and nature of class actions, forcing companies to defend against the same types of allegations under distinctly different legal regimes on each side of the border.
The three cases decided by the Canadian court, which all involved allegations of price-fixing, are: