“The Law Society is going to have a careful look at what is being contemplated.”
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Ian Mulgrew: ICBC changes put rights of injured at grave risk, lawyers warn – Vancouver Sun
John Rice, president of the Trial Lawyers Association of B.C.
B.C. lawyers erupted in dismay at the announcement Thursday that the NDP minority government was restricting access to the courts, curtailing the right to sue, and imposing a no-fault-style auto insurance.
“After 30 years, ICBC is now going to pivot to this new model? I think that’s naive in the least,” said John Rice, president of the Trial Lawyers Association of B.C., which represents most of the province’s personal injury bar.
“It’s pretty stunning and disappointing. What this legislation is going to do is take away the right of British Columbians to go to court and get a fair settlement. The government wants to focus on getting legal costs and lawyers out of the system, but what it’s really about is protecting ICBC and protecting ICBC management.”
The new system will reward bad drivers and unduly burden the most vulnerable, Rice added.
Calling them “generational changes,” Attorney-General David Eby threw in the towel on fixing the management of the financially troubled Crown corporation and decided to dramatically switch insurance models.
The so-called no-fault scheme essentially offers quicker car repair and health-cost recovery without lengthy legal battles so the insurer can offer lower rates.
The NDP promised to say “no” to no-fault during the last election campaign, but Eby said ICBC is hemorrhaging too much cash to live up to that vow — more than $1 billion a year — and rates have gone up 50 per cent in the last decade.
“The sad reality is this represents the over-whelming burden of legal costs and dramatically inflating court awards on our insurance system,” the attorney-general said.
The proposed changes reintroduce limits on expert reports and will place caps on compensation for disbursements in litigation in the transition period.
They also contemplate a significant alteration in how disputes between accident victims and ICBC over compensation entitlements will be addressed by increasing the role of the Civil Resolution Tribunal.
“The Law Society is going to have a careful look at what is being contemplated,” said President Craig Ferris.
“We are particularly concerned about the potential impacts on those individuals who, due to unforeseen events, are injured and have a right to ensure that their compensation is fairly determined.”
The Canadian Bar Association-B.C. branch denounced the moves. It opposes no-fault insurance on the grounds it restricts the rights of injured victims to have their claims assessed based on their specific circumstances.
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“Our system of justice is built on fairness and the acceptance of responsibility for our actions,” said Ken Armstrong, the Canadian Bar Association-B.C. branch president. “An innocent victim of an accident has a right to expect that the person at fault for the accident take responsibility for it. In a no-fault insurance plan, no one but the victims and their families bears the consequences of that accident.”
He said no-fault significantly reduced access to justice by making it harder for people to receive legal advice and representation to deal with the same insurer that the government admits needs a new Fairness Office.
“The ‘dumpster fire’ is a manufactured crisis — up until 2015, ICBC was the Crown jewel of public auto, it was generating a profit,” Rice complained.
“Really what their proposal is here is to make a much, much bigger fire in a much bigger and more powerful ICBC.”
He sneered at Eby’s proposed better benefits.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be attractive to people with brain injuries and serious injuries when they are told under this new legislation their claims are worth absolutely nothing from the perspective of compensating them for their pain and suffering. … Instead of getting lump-sum damages to go to the doctor they want or the physiotherapist they want, they’re going to get stuck with a WorkSafe-type scheme where they have to deal with the (Civil Resolution Tribunal), ICBC or some ombudsman indefinitely.”
Since becoming minister in July 2017, Eby has launched a full-out assault on personal injury lawyers.
Eby said getting “the legal costs out of the system” will allow ICBC to increase benefits 24 times.
He argued that ICBC had reduced losses and road collisions but rate increases were still inevitable and people were angry their rates were still going up.
Lawyers were to blame for the Crown corporation’s financial “dumpster fire,” Eby insisted, although he acknowledged the insurance giant that dominates the legal industry was not blameless.
“Their strategy of the last two years has failed,” Rice exploded. “This entire package was introduced by ambush. With no notice. The government campaigned on a promise of no, no-fault. They don’t have a mandate for this.”
Eby estimated some $400 million could be saved by changing the court rules around expert reports alone.
Yet he failed miserably in the last year to get judges and lawyers onside — losing in court and being publicly rebuked.
Under the new model, Eby said the injured will get the care they need without having to hire a lawyer, and out-of-control, sky-high legal costs will be eliminated.
The injured won’t, as they do now, have to lawyer up and sue to get the care they deserve, Eby noted as he unveiled his bumper-sticker program, “Affordable Rates, Enhanced Care.”
Motorists can expect a 20-per-cent decrease in rates next year, seemingly $400 annually on average, he added, and lawyers will lose the 25 to 33 per cent rake on settlements they get from contingency fees — some $500 million a year.
“What this means is people hurt, with brain injuries, children with spinal cord injuries, orthopedic fractures, amputations, burns, they get nothing for their pain and suffering,” Rice explained.
“Instead, in exchange for sacrificing that, not being made whole, they get to deal with ICBC in what they call a ‘care model.’ They’ll have to deal with ICBC indefinitely, to trust in them to provide the care that ICBC deems is necessary. The only real beneficiary of this policy is ICBC. The government suggests this most recent initiative will be constitutional, we’ll have to look at the legislation.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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