RSS FeedHa-Redeye and Yap — Piedra v. Copper Mesa Mining Corp
In the spirit of increased collegiality and collaboration within the Canadian legal blogging community, LawisCool.com and TheCourt.ca have set aside their heated rivalry to bring you their first ever joint posting. What follows is a commentary on the interesting case of Piedra v. Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, 2010 ONSC 2421.
Commentator for LawisCool.com: Omar Ha-Redeye, Juris Doctor, University of Western Ontario; founding contributor of LawisCool.com
Commetator for TheCourt.ca: James Yap, Juris Doctor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University; former Senior Contributing Editor, TheCourt.ca.
The Facts
Copper Mesa Mining Corporation is a Canadian company based in British Columbia who planned through one of its subsidiaries to build an open pit copper mine in the Intag cloud forest just south-west of The Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Reserve, an area of the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. The company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), but it does not have significant assets or operations in the province of Ontario aside from two of its non-management directors residing in the province.
The Plaintiffs in the case are local activists in Ecuador who have opposed the mine, on the grounds that it will create major deforestation and desertification in the area and threaten more than a dozen animals with extinction. They allege that Copper Mesa through its agents used armed assaults and death threats to intimidate the local activists. Due to a perceived inability to hold Copper Mesa accountable in their country, the Plaintiffs brought a suit in Ontario against Copper Mesa, its directors, and the TSX.
The most novel aspect of the suit is the claim against the TSX for approving and listing Copper Mesa on the exchange, resulting in an influx of capital that would allegedly be used for further intimidation and violence against opponents. Local politicians in Ecuador and environmental supporters in Canada had brought the human rights allegations to the attention of the TSX before its listing. Further, the final prospectus filed by Copper Mesa’s subsidiary to the TSX acknowledge the existence of the conflict,
“[t]ensions surrounding potential exploration and mining work on the Junin property have risen, creating the potential of further escalating violence unless steps are taken to diffuse the situation,” and goes on to report a specific incident in which members of an “anti-mining group” felt “threatened”;
The liability, according to the Plaintiffs, flows from the failure to take any steps to avoid the violence, and that the Defendants knew or ought to have known that violence would ensue if the Copper Mesa subsidiary was financed through the TSX, and should have taken measures to ensure funds raised were not used for improper purposes. The project was highly dependent on funding from the TSX, with over 80% of the US$26.7 million raised by the Copper Mesa subsidiary raised on the TSX alone. According to the Plaintiffs, it was a brokered private placement of shares approved by the TSX that raised US$4.5 million that allowed Copper Mesa to hire the private security forces allegedly responsible for the armed assaults that form the basis of the claim.
The TSX is considered a specialized exchange for mining, and over 60% of the world’s mining companies are listed on the TSX and related exchanges.
Former sex worker at Osgoode tells her story
From selling sex to Osgoode Hall
Daniel Dale writes for the Toronto Star:
Even at diverse York University, the woman in the front row is a curious sight. She takes notes on an unlined piece of white paper. Her arms are tattooed. Her brown hair is streaked pink. And her bespectacled gaze is firm.
Osgoode Looking to Undergo Makeover
“I was practically embarrassed to see such a horrible looking building,” [business leader and philanthropist, Ignat Kaneff, said] of his visit to the school where his daughter, Kristina, is a student. “It was awful.”
Many who know Osgoode Hall law school would echo this sentiment. Indeed, my anonymous friend at the school had this to say about the building: “like a bunker, but with fewer windows.”
Even the school’s website sports few photos of the building, probably for this very reason.
However, Osgoode’s Advancement Office has embarked on a campaign to remedy the situation.
The Building Osgoode campaign is trying to raise $25 million to add an impressive new wing to the law school. The wing will include a rare books library, a lounge, and a new cafeteria. All of this will be centered around an expansive glass atrium.
According to the campaign’s website,
The Building Osgoode Campaign, however, is not strictly about bricks and mortar. It is about creating a centre for legal education that will equip young lawyers to face the challenge of constant change in the years ahead. Today’s law graduates must be able to navigate a legal system that is ever shifting, increasingly global in nature, and continually giving rise to new ethical and professional questions. Imparting this knowledge takes more than outstanding faculty, it requires physical facilities that match the ambition of the education provided. The Building Osgoode Campaign will give us the tools we need to fully engage a demanding future.
I got in touch with Anita Herrmann, Osgoode’s Office of Advancement Director. Ms. Herrmann’s office is in charge of the Building Osgoode campaign. She explains:
We’re in the final planning stages so I can’t offer any specifics on what will happen, but I can say that it will be a spectacular transformation that will focus on student space and improving the student experience. We are planning to break ground next May.
Ignatt Kaneff has generously donated $2.5 million towards the project. Other notable donors include Canada Law Book, Goodmans LLP, and Ogilvy Renault.
Construction is expected to take two years to complete.
Osgoode Francophone Society
Osgoode Hall Law School has had its own Francophone Society since January. We started with a tiny weekly conversation club last year even before officially registering with Legal and Lit. About ten or fifteen French language enthusiasts regularly pulled tables together in the inescapable Osgoode cafeteria and practiced French. We didn’t have a single native speaker among us but some of us spoke pretty good Français. That was our first year.
Come September, we would like to continue our conversation club. If you are in Osgoode in any capacity and speak French, why not bavarder avec nous? If you are a native speaker this is really your Society, and one of its goals is to raise the profile of the Francophone community in Osgoode.
We would also like to build relationships with the Francophone legal community in Toronto. There is a significant interest in the French language among law students as my experience with running the Francophone Society shows. Let’s network.
Drop me a line if you want to join the Society or would like more information: my first name @ my last name . org.
Last year in Osgoode (and the Law Journal)
I am lucky enough to be a senior editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal in the year of its 50th anniversary. To mark this occasion the Journal is publishing a series of special issues on “Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Environmental Law, Transnational Law and Comparative Constitutionalism, and Access to Justice and Law Reform” – to quote our editor-in-chief (and Section C’s criminal law prof last year) Jamie Cameron.
The Winter 2007 issue began the anniversary series with a discussion of law and feminism. Mary Jane Mossman (my first year property prof) guest-edited it and wrote a foreword and a book review. My first two footnote assignments when I was a junior editor came from our feminism issue.
The current Spring 2008 issue, with an all new look and feel, focuses on legal ethics and professional responsibility with Trevor Farrow as a guest editor. Professor Farrow is familiar to the 2010 Osgoode class as one of the faculty leaders of the brand new Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community course. Adam Dodek whose article opens the ethics issue was my Ethical Lawyering professor. Another name in the table of contents familiar to my class is Janet Leiper, the Visiting Professor of Public Interest Law and the overseer of the Osgoode Public Interest Requirement.
These are some of the happenings and names that remind me of my first year in Osgoode and with the Law Journal. I marked the passing of three quarters of the summer watching L’année dernière à Marienbad in the Cinematheque last night. Remember last year?
