SCC Haaretz ruling maintains jurisdiction ‘status quo’: legal experts

A Supreme Court of Canada ruling in an online libel case won’t change much about how court jurisdiction over online content currently works in Canada, according to legal experts. “The SCC did not re-write the rules of conflicts of law, but simply applied the existing law,” said David Fewer of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) in an email. CIPPIC intervened in the case, which was heard in November 2017. In question was a case brought to the Supreme Court in spring 2017. The complainant was Mitchell Goldhar, who owns the SmartCentres commercial real estate developer and soccer team in Israel. Goldhar brought a defamation suit in Ontario against Haaretz, over a 2011 profile entitled “Long-distance Operator.” The article criticized Goldhar for his management of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv, which he owns. Goldhar requested that the case be heard in Ontario, but Haaretz claimed that it was not the correct jurisdiction. An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled in Goldhar’s favour, and Haaretz subsequently appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The SCC’s ruling, issued Wednesday, was a complex mix of opinions, with three justices agreeing with the majority ruling, three other justices concurring with the outcome, but individually disagreeing in the application of the law, and a dissenting opinion held by the remaining three justices on the bench. The majority reasoning was that the most convenient location to host a libel suit filed by a Canadian billionaire against an Israeli newspaper was Israel. The three concurring opinions disputed the exact laws that precluded that decision, while the dissenters disgareed that the proceedings needed to happen outside of Ontario. Legal analysts had kept tabs on the proceedings, seeing them as another barometer of the internet and the legalities of extra-territorial jurisdiction, in this case a determination on shopping for favourable jurisdictions (commonly called ‘libel tourism’). “What does it mean for Canadian defamation cases? Roughly, it is status quo,” wrote Fewer. “Canadian courts will have jurisdiction over virtually all internet defamation cases with a connection between Canada and the plaintiff. Whether the Canadian court will actually hear the case will come down in most cases to efficiency and fairness considerations.” Maanit Zemel, a Toronto-based online defamation lawyer, also said she felt like not much has changed, specifically because every justice agreed that the case could have been heard in Ontario, barring the particulars found in this case.

SCC Haaretz ruling maintains jurisdiction ‘status quo’: legal experts

Brief | June 6, 2018

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SCC Haaretz ruling maintains jurisdiction ‘status quo’: legal experts

Brief | June 6, 2018

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