The Second Opinion: The Ontario Court Of Appeal Addresses Jurisdiction Over International Tort Claim

Global commerce transcends borders. When related litigation ensues, it can give rise to thorny jurisdictional issues. For instance, when an Ontario-headquartered mining company relies — based on recommendations from its technical staff in its Vancouver satellite office — upon the engineering reports of US-based consultants to build a gold mine in Costa Rica which then collapses, does an Ontario court have jurisdiction over the subsequent legal dispute between the parties?

The Ontario Court of Appeal addressed this very scenario recently in Central Sun Mining Inc. v. Vector Engineering Inc., 2013 ONCA 601. Central Sun was an Ontario company with its head office in Toronto. It retained various American engineering consultants to assist with the siting and the design of a proposed mine which was to be...