Ontario’s move to allow American-style shareholder class-action lawsuits has attracted a feared and revered Wall Street plaintiffs’ lawyer to the province just as the pendulum is swinging away from similar suits in the United States.
Michael Spencer, a senior partner who sits on the executive committee at Milberg LLP – one of the original class-action firms – is preparing to practise law in Canada.
He was most recently a lead counsel in the Vivendi SA shareholder lawsuit that left the French media company facing an eye-popping $9.3-billion (U.S.) damage award for misleading investors.
The size of that award was reduced by the courts. But Mr. Spencer, who recently led a U.S. class action against a French company on behalf of American, French, British and Dutch investors, is at the epicentre of the globalization of securities class actions.
That epicentre will soon be stationed part-time in the offices of Kim Orr Barristers PC, a Toronto class-action boutique, working on Canadian and cross-border cases.
Mr. Spencer makes no bones about why, at the pinnacle of his career, he is prepared to swap the perks of a privileged life in Manhattan for Toronto. It’s because of Ontario’s Bill 198, enacted in 2005, which allows shareholders who buy stock on the open market to sue if they feel a company misrepresents its financial situation.
Ordinarily, an amendment to provincial securities law would not attract the attention of someone in Mr. Spencer’s ambit, but these are not ordinary times for U.S. class-action lawyers.
