On Monday a small wave of documents were uploaded on the website of one of the auditing firms which are acting as monitors for the tobacco industry's Canadian insolvency proceedings.
Two lawfirms were seeking an urgent decision by Justice Morawetz to close down an attempt by a third firm to recruit clients among the injured smokers who will be eligible for compensation, should the settlement plan with tobacco companies come into effect.
One of the firms seeking injunctive relief was the Quebec firm, Trudel, Johnston, Lespérance, which has for decades managed class action suit of Quebec smokers with lung cancer, throat cancer and serious emphyzema who were diagnosed before March 12, 2012. The other is the Halifax firm, Wagners, which was appointed by the court to represent similarly-injured smokers who were not part of the Quebec Class action. (These injured smokers are across Canada and were diagnosed with the same diseases in the four years before March 9, 2019.
In recent weeks, the Actis Law Group encouraged potential claimants to register with them, suggesting that they would take a contingency fee cut of any payments. This raised the ire of the firms mandated to represent those claimants, especially because the administration of the compensation plan has been designed to avoid the need for lawyers (or lawyers' fees!).
