Billions of dollars invested, not a penny lost.

Agent liable for misstatement: OCA

DAVID MILLER

Former Toronto mayor returns to old law firm

PAGE 4

EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

Why employers need computer privacy policies

PAGE 9

TORT LAW

When non-citizens seek damages

PAGE 14

PASSING THE BATON

CRISTIN SCHMITZ OTTAWA

In a decision of national interest, the Ontario Court of Appeal has shaken up the real estate industry by holding a real estate agent and a vendor equally liable for the latter’s negligent misstatement on the controversial seller property information sheet (SPIS).

In the view of some real
estate experts such as Bob
Aaron of Toronto, who is an
outspoken critic of the SPIS,
the May 6 decision in Kraw-
chuk v. Scherbak “significantly
raises the bar for real estate
agents with respect to their
duty to advise and disclose
latent defects in a home. I think
in the wake of this decision any
seller’s agent who continues to
use an SPIS is asking for
trouble, is inviting litigation,
and should immediately con-
tact their errors and omissions
insurance company to make a
claim even before the offer is
signed or submitted.”
Aaron added that in his view
“the case seems to say that a
real estate agent can no longer
act as a [mere] conduit for
information about the property
from the seller to the pur-
chaser, but it seems to indicate
that a real estate agent now has
a duty to verify the informa-
tion, and if he or she fails to do
that, he or she is going to be
liable, and that the disclaimers
[of agents’ liability] on the
[SPIS] form basically have lit-

Decision could have wide ranging implications for the real estate industry

Toronto: Real estate expert Bob Aaron contends the court has imposed a higher duty on sellers’ real estate agents to verify sellers’ statements about their properties.

PAUL LAWRENCE FOR THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

See Krawchuk Page 3

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

Vol. 22, No. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION December 6, 2002

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

VOL. 22, NO. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION DECEMBER 6, 2002

Experts warn cloud computing still risky

LUIS MILLAN

The massive Sony Corp. data
breach that compromised the
personal data of more than 100
million customers of the
Japanese electronics conglom-
erate, the latest in a series of
security nightmares that have
afflicted computing services and
cloud service providers, under-
scores the need to review Can-
ada’s privacy accountability
model, which should be but-
tressed by mandatory breach
reporting and “significant,
Canada’s privacy commissioner
Jennifer Stoddart.

The announcement by Sony that hackers managed to break into databases that contain personal information associated with millions of user accounts on the company’s popular online game console PlaySta-tion portal followed on the heels of another massive security breach earlier this spring suffered by Epsilon Data Management LLC, an email marketing provider that manages email communications for major U.S.

banks and credit card issuers as well as Best Buy Canada and

B.C.-based AbeBooks.

“Deeply troubled” by the “repeated and massive data breaches affecting Canadians,” Stoddart plans to ask Industry Canada to amend legislation to give the privacy commissioner the power to levy fines to ensure compliance, a power that her counterparts in France and the U.K. now have.

“What I have noticed increas-
ingly is that our accountability
model does not have any mech-
anisms to measure accountabil-
ity, short of somebody making a
complaint or me opening an
investigation or an audit, we
really don’t have many incen-
tives to comply with the law,”
Stoddart told The Lawyers
Weekly. “Some companies out
there haven’t taken these con-
cerns [seriously]. There are
some of them that simply say it’s
a dollar-and-cents issue. If I
don’t have much of a chance of
being investigated or there’s
really no downside to this, why
would we invest the money. It’s
time we change that equation so
See Cloud Page 27
THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

VOL. 22, NO. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION DECEMBER 6, 2002

Lawyers need to start succession planning now

PAGE 21

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