References present a double-edged sword for employers. On one hand, employers typically want former employees to find new jobs as doing so will get them off the company’s severance payroll. On the other hand, providing references may expose employers to dual-pronged liability in negligence and/or defamation. Given the recent news that Canada lost nearly 46,000…
As global trade increases, so does the movement of labour between jurisdictions. This is because companies increasingly require skilled labour to support growth in both emerging and high growth markets. The rising demand for mobile labour is reflected in the rapid increase of global assignees over the past 10 years. This trend is only expected to continue in the coming…
Employers have every reason to vigorously protect their confidential information. In a competitive marketplace, the maximum value of a work product is highly dependent on exclusivity of ownership. And as the saying goes, once the “genie is out of the bottle” it can never be back in. However, a recent case from the Ontario Superior…
The federal government announced on Friday, October 18th that Canada and the European Union (“EU”) have come to a “political agreement” on free trade. The agreement, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (“CETA”), has been called the most comprehensive free trade agreement ever signed by Canada. The agreement indeed appears highly comprehensive, addressing…
As the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for”. Two former employees of now-defunct Trillium Manufacturing are suing the Ministry of Labour over advice they received from its ESA hotline. The two employees accepted 8 weeks’ pay-in-lieu of notice from their employer as the ESA hotline told them that was their maximum legal entitlement,…