LAWYER HIRED
High-profile Gavin Tighe will represent three lawyers in $50-million e-gaming suit
A high-profile Toronto lawyer whose former clients include the late Rob Ford is now representing three people named in P.E.I.’s ongoing $50 million e-gaming lawsuit.
A high-profile Toronto lawyer whose former clients include the late Rob Ford is now representing three people named in P.E.I.’s ongoing $50 million e-gaming lawsuit.
Gavin Tighe has been retained to represent Bill Dow, Gary Scales and Tracey Cutcliffe.
Tighe successfully defended Ford in a $6 million defamation lawsuit in 2013 brought against him by a Toronto restaurateur. He has also represented other high-profile clients and specializes in professional liability at Gardiner Roberts LLP in Toronto.
He recently joined the team of lawyers involved in the P.E.I. e-gaming lawsuit after the company suing the P.E.I. government - Capital Markets Technologies (CMT) – added a number of additional defendants.
All of those in the long list of defendants named in the egaming suit, who are currently or were formerly employed by the province, are being represented by local lawyer Jonathan Coady of Stewart McKelvey.
Another defendant, private businessman Paul Jenkins, has retained Ken Godfrey of Campbell Lea for legal representation in the case.
Tighe, meanwhile, will represent the three lawyers named in the case.
The e-gaming suit and Tighe’s role in it came up in the P.E.I. legislature Friday when Opposition MLA Steven Myers questioned why “Rob Ford’s ‘crazy town’ lawyer” was added to the case.
Myers also questioned why, eight months after the CMT lawsuit was filed in court, government has not yet filed a statement of defence or any other legal response.
The Guardian has confirmed the reason is due to a number of legal procedures that have led to delays.
One of those procedures involved CMT having to retain a new legal representation after its lawyer, John W. Findlay, was suspended from practising law by the Law Society of Upper Canada in July.
He was also placed under investigation for $1.5 million missing from a class action settlement fund involving a wholly unrelated case Findlay was involved in dating back to 2006.
Another procedural delay was caused by CMT adding extra defendants to the e-gaming suit after it was already filed it in court.
Doing this requires either the consent of the court or of the defendants.
Locating the new defendants and allowing them time to get legal representation and determine their legal options takes time.
“Given that the plaintiffs need to fix their claim to correct errors and add more defendants, the government does not have any obligation to file a defence at this time,” Coady said in a statement to The Guardian.
“When the claim is finally amended and fixed by the plaintiffs, we will file a full defence. That is the usual — and the most efficient — practice when dealing with corrections and amendments.”
The Guardian has also confirmed that Tighe was retained to defend Dow, Cutcliffe and Scales by the Canadian Legal Insurance Association and that his legal fees will be covered by their insurance claims.
A hearing will likely be held in the winter of 2018 to determine a number of preliminary procedural issues regarding the case, including a likely request for CMT to post additional security for costs for the new defendants.
In their statement of claim filed in March, the plaintiffs (CMT and a subsidiary numbered company) are seeking $50 million in damages for allegations that include misfeasance in a public office by several of the defendants, a breach of fiduciary duty and wrongful acts of spoliation of documents said to be crucially relevant to the case.
That court filing came after P.E.I. Supreme Court Justice Gordon Campbell struck out a previous statement of claim in February 2016.
Campbell said in his decision it constituted an abuse of the processes of the court. But the decision also allowed the plaintiffs to file a new statement of claim.
Capital Markets Technologies was a shareholder in a company that worked with the province and the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of P.E.I. in 2011-12 on a plan to make P.E.I. an internet gambling regulator for the country.
The plan was abandoned after it was determined to be illegal, but has been the focus of ongoing criticism and scrutiny, including an investigation by the auditor general.