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Trends in Canadian Securities Class Actions: 2021 Update
02 March 2022
Bradley A. Heys, Robert Patton, Jielei Mao
Managing Director Bradley A. Heys, Director Robert Patton, and Senior Analyst Jielei Mao have released their annual report reviewing securities class actions in Canada. “Trends in Canadian Securities Class Actions: 2021 Update” contains analysis based on NERA’s proprietary database of information on securities class actions in Canada. The report covers trends in the past year’s filings and considerations for 2022.
Highlights from the report include the following:
- Ten new securities class actions were filed during 2021, five fewer than the all-time high of 15 cases filed in each of 2011, 2019, and 2020, respectfully.
- None of the new filings in Canada in 2021 involve issuers in the cannabis sector, in contrast to 2020 and 2019 when cannabis-related cases accounted for a substantial number of filings.
- 2021 saw the first ever filing of a securities class action in the Yukon.
- Only two of the 10 new cases filed in Canada during 2021 had a parallel US shareholder class action as of the end of the year. Another five US shareholder class actions involving Canadian-domiciled issuers were also filed in 2021 for which there was no parallel Canadian case as of the end of the year.
- Five Canadian securities class actions were settled during 2021, down from seven settlements in 2020.
- The largest settlement in 2021 was the $125 million settlement in the case relating to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), the eighth-largest settlement of a Canadian securities class action to date.
Further analysis can be found in NERA’s full report. Interested readers looking for more information or who have specific questions are invited to contact the authors directly.