Joseph Groia

Last updated

Joseph Groia, is a Canadian lawyer specializing in securities litigation. He has been ranked as one of Canada's 500 Leading Lawyers (Lexpert) since 2000 and is consistently rated as one of Canada's top securities litigators by the same publication. [1] He has worked on many of Canada's leading securities cases, including Asbestos Corp., Bre-X Minerals Ltd., Canadian Tire, Cinar Corporation, Hollinger, Torstar/Southam, Philip Services and YBM.

Contents

He received his BA and LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1976 and 1979, respectively. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1981. At the beginning of his career, he worked for McTaggart, Potts, Stone & Herridge and then McMillan Binch before moving to the Ontario Securities Commission in 1985 where he served as Associate General Counsel and then Director of Enforcement. In 1990, he joined the Toronto office of Heenan Blaikie as a litigation partner and stayed there until he founded Groia & Company in 2000, where he is a Principal. [2]

Bre-X and the trial of John B. Felderhof

Mr. Groia is perhaps best known for his successful defence of John Felderhof in an almost decade-long trial resulting from the Bre-X Minerals scandal, the largest mining fraud in Canadian history. The gold-mining scandal was the result of Bre-X Minerals's false reports of an enormous gold deposit at Busang, Indonesia. Bre-X bought the Busang site in March 1993 and, in October 1995, announced significant amounts of gold had been discovered, sending its stock price soaring. Originally a penny stock, its market price reached a peak at CAD $286.50 per share in May 1996 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), with a total capitalization of over CAD $6 billion. Bre-X Minerals collapsed in 1997 after the gold samples were found to be a fraud.

In May 1999, the Ontario Securities Commission charged Mr. Felderhof, Bre-X Minerals's Vice-President of Exploration, with insider trading and participating in misleading press releases. The trial was an acrimonious one and was suspended in April 2001 when the OSC tried to have the presiding judge, Justice Peter Hryn, removed for alleged bias against the prosecution. This request was denied by justice Archie Campbell, and, on 10 December 2003, the appeal was denied by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Felderhof's trial resumed in 2005, and he was acquitted on the merits of charges in a 600-page decision in 2007. [3]

Bre-X and the Law Society of Upper Canada

Since Felderhof's acquittal, the Law Society of Upper Canada has found Groia guilty of incivility during the defence of Felderhof. [4] Groia's appeal against the LSUC's misconduct ruling was thrown out by an Ontario Divisional Court in early February 2015, but Groia stated that he intended to pursue the matter further at the Court of Appeal. [5] The LSUC's judgement has been heavily criticized by numerous Canadian legal commentators, including the Criminal Lawyers Association, for its "potential chilling effect upon defence counsel". [6] After a long legal battle, on 1 June 2018, Groia prevailed, as the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately concluded that a finding of professional misconduct by the Law Society's Appeal Tribunal “against [Groia] on the basis of incivility was unreasonable." [7]

Other activities

Mr. Groia has been committed to legal education throughout his career. He has presented securities and corporate law papers at McGill University's Meredith Lectures, the Peat Marwick Memorial Lectures, the Law Society of Upper Canada Special Lectures, the Langdon Hall Securities Law Practitioners' Programme and the Oxford Conference on International Securities Fraud. [1] He has taught classes in securities law and trial practice at the University of Alberta, Windsor Law School, Osgoode Hall Law School, University of Western Ontario, Dalhousie University, University of Ottawa Law School, McGill University Faculty of Law and the University of Toronto.

In 2007, Mr. Groia and Pamela Hardie published Canada's first and only textbook on securities litigation, Securities Litigation and Enforcement. The second edition was published in 2012. [8]

In 2018, Mr. Groia accepted to represent businessperson Kevin O'Leary in his lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of certain election finance rules. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osgoode Hall Law School</span> Law school in Toronto, Ontario

Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal. A variety of LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law are available.

Bre-X was a group of companies in Canada. Bre-X Minerals Ltd., a major part of Bre-X based in Calgary, was involved in a major gold mining scandal when it reported it was sitting on an enormous gold deposit at Busang, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Bre-X bought the Busang site in March 1993 and in October 1995 announced significant amounts of gold had been discovered, sending its stock price soaring. Originally a penny stock, its stock price reached a peak at CAD$286.50 in May 1996 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), with a total capitalization of over CAD $6 billion. Bre-X Minerals collapsed in 1997 after the gold samples were found to be fraudulent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Greenspan</span>

Edward Leonard Greenspan, was one of Canada's most famous defence lawyers, and a prolific author of legal volumes. His fame was owed to numerous high-profile clients and to his national exposure on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series Scales of Justice (1982–94).

Garth Drabinsky is a Canadian film and theatrical producer and entrepreneur. In 2009, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery. The sentence was reduced from 7 to 5 years in prison, on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a subsequent appeal. In April 2023, a judge dismissed Drabinsky’s defamation lawsuit against American Actor’s Equity for placing him on their ‘Do Not Work’ list. Drabinsky has attempted 3 comebacks all resulting in failure and millions of investor dollars being lost.

Gavin MacKenzie is a Canadian lawyer and former Treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He works as a lawyer and partner at MacKenzie Barristers, a boutique litigation firm in Toronto, Ontario that he co-founded with his daughter, Brooke. MacKenzie's practice focuses primarily on civil appeals and professional liability litigation.

National Instrument 43-101Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects is a securities regulatory instrument that governs how companies can disclose mining-related information in Canada. Its rules aim to prevent companies from sharing inaccurate or misleading information about their mineral assets with prospective investors and the public. It is overseen and enforced by the Canadian Securities Administrators.

The Arbitration Roundtable of Toronto is made up of several litigators, academics, arbitrators, and mediators from the Greater Toronto Area. The group promotes arbitration as an alternative method of conflict resolution over litigation, especially in commercial suits. Members include commercial litigators from Toronto law firms including some of the Seven Sisters of Bay Street. Each member has experience and interest in promoting commercial Arbitration. The group dedicates its time to encouraging this form of Dispute resolution through seminars, papers, and talks.

Robert James Sharpe, OC, FRSC is a Canadian lawyer, author, academic, and judge. He was dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 1990 to 1995 and a judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 1999 to 2020.

Hersch Harry Kopyto is a Canadian political activist and commentator who is best known for his legal career in which he often crusaded on behalf of underdogs and for his frequent conflicts with the legal establishment. Disbarred as a lawyer in 1989, he continued to practise as a paralegal until 2015 and worked as an unlicensed legal advocate and researcher until barred, in 2020, from conducting any legal work.

WeirFoulds LLP is a Canadian law firm based in Toronto, Ontario. The firm specializes in litigation, corporate, property and government law. It is one of Canada's oldest law firms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Greenspan</span> Canadian lawyer (born 1947)

Brian H. Greenspan, is a Canadian lawyer. He is one of the most prominent defence lawyers in Canada.

Michael Moldaver is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to the nation's top court, he served as a judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario for over 20 years. A former criminal lawyer, Moldaver is considered an expert in both Canadian criminal law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Sidney Leonard Jaffe was an American-born Canadian businessman who was kidnapped from outside his Toronto home in 1981 by American bounty hunters Timm Johnsen and Daniel Kear and transported to Florida after failing to appear for a trial there on charges of land sales fraud. His conviction on the fraud charges was overturned on appeal; his conviction on an additional charge of failure to appear for trial was upheld, but he was paroled after two years and returned to Canada. At the request of the Canadian government, Jaffe declined to appear at a new Florida trial on further land fraud charges in 1985. Johnsen and Kear were extradited to Canada and convicted of kidnapping in 1986, but were set free pending appeal, and their sentences were reduced to time served in 1989, after which they returned to the United States. The Jaffe incident caused significant tensions in Canada–United States relations, and resulted in a 1988 exchange of letters between the two countries on cross-border kidnappings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvey Thomas Strosberg</span> Canadian lawyer

Harvey Thomas Strosberg, is a Canadian lawyer. He is a senior partner at the law firm of Strosberg, Sasso, Sutts LLP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert P. Armstrong</span> Canadian lawyer and retired judge

Robert Patrick Armstrong is a Canadian lawyer and retired judge. He served on the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 2002 until his retirement in 2013. Before serving on the bench, Armstrong was a partner at Torys and was lead counsel in the Dubin Inquiry on steroid use in Canadian sports. After leaving the bench, Armstrong joined Arbitration Place, a Canadian group specializing in alternative dispute resolution.

Mineral resource estimation is used to determine and define the ore tonnage and grade of a geological deposit, from the developed block model. There are different estimation methods used for different scenarios dependent upon the ore boundaries, geological deposit geometry, grade variability and the amount of time and money available. A typical resource estimation involves the construction of a geological and resource model with data from various sources. Depending on the nature of the information and whether the data is hard copy or computerized, the principal steps of computer resource estimation are:

  1. Creation, standardization and validation of the database.
  2. Section plotting and interactive geological modeling.
  3. Geostatistical analysis.
  4. Block modeling and block estimation.

Paul B. Schabas is a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

M. David Lepofsky is a Canadian academic, retired lawyer, disability advocate. Blind for much of his life, Lepofsky was named one of Canada's most influential lawyers in 2010.

John B. Laskin is a justice of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Todd McCarthy (politician)</span> Canadian politician

Todd J. McCarthy is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has been the Ontario Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery since September 22, 2023. A member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, McCarthy was elected in the 2022 provincial election to represent Durham in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

References

  1. 1 2 "Groia & Company Website".
  2. ↑ "Business Week". 10 July 2023.[ dead link ]
  3. ↑ "CBC: Felderhof Acquitted on Bre-X Charges".
  4. ↑ "Law Times: Groia's Appeal Accuses LSUC of Abuse of Process".
  5. ↑ Taddese, Yamri (9 February 2015). "Groia to continue court battle, hopes to make change as bencher". Law Times. Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  6. ↑ "Canadian Lawyer Magazine: CLA Slams Groia Suspension Decision".
  7. ↑ "Canadian Lawyer: SCC sides with Joseph Groia after legal battle over civility".
  8. ↑ "Carswell: Securities and Enforcement 2nd Edition".
  9. ↑ "Kevin O'Leary's Statement of Claim".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.