My March 3 post, “Even a profitable franchisee can rescind”, was about the Springdale Pizza franchise rescission dispute. It has been before the Ontario courts since 2009. A CanLII.org search reveals nine different decisions, which makes for protracted and expensive litigation.
Courts will remove an arbitrator in an arbitration where there is a reasonable apprehension of bias on the arbitrator’s part, including when the arbitrator has recently retained the same expert put forward by one of the parties to the arbitration.
As a franchisor litigator representing franchisors, I am often asked to bring an injunction to stop a terminated franchisee from breaching a non-competition covenant.
Often, the public does not distinguish between franchisor and franchisee when something goes wrong at a franchise. And that could leave franchisors facing a lawsuit for alleged wrongful acts by a franchisee or employee of a franchisee, including negligence, discrimination or assault.
In previous posts I have mentioned that Ontario’s Arthur Wishart Act (Franchise Disclosure), 2000 (the “Act”), is mostly about the disclosure a franchisor must make to a prospective franchisee before any franchise agreement is entered into or money paid.
Last week I attended the Canadian Franchise Association’s Law Day in Toronto where there was record attendance. Disclosure continues to be a huge topic in Canadian franchise law. It’s clear that per-contractual disclosure is required under Canadian franchise statutes but what many in franchising are not yet certain about is whether there is any duty to disclose once the franchise agreement has been signed.
