Recent Developments and Trends in Securities Class Actions

To date, the Canadian experience with the Class Proceedings Act has not mirrored that of the United States, where class actions brought by disgruntled investors against issuers have become so common that federal legislation was introduced to deal with the growing problem of "strike suits". However, the high-profile debacles in recent years of Bre-X, Enron, and YBM Magnex International, Inc. have raised the consciousness of the Canadian class action bar to such claims and caused Canadian investors in the capital markets to view participants in the securities industry with increased skepticism, which is likely to result in an increased number of securities class actions in the coming years.

Prepared for Insight Conference, Securities Litigation, 2003