Increasingly, scam victims have asked Watson Goepel LLP’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group to help recover funds stolen from a bank account. To do so, we have often sought an exceptional remedy known as a “Norwich Order” to track down information about where the stolen funds have gone and who is behind the accounts that…

Clients Paying Third Parties Using Their Lawyer’s Trust Account Watson Goepel LLP’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group was recently successful in clarifying how funds deposited in a lawyer’s trust account on behalf of a third party are treated. In successive successful hearings, we argued that when a company pays funds into a trust on behalf…

In March 2020, the aggressive spread of COVID-19 cases created uncertainty and economic chaos for businesses in Canada. One British Columbia employer took the step of laying off a significant number of its employees. This step, taken by many other employers, was intended to be a temporary measure and last resort necessitated by the pandemic…

The novel coronavirus has disrupted British Columbia’s economy and the province may not fully recover from the effects of social distancing for months to come. For many business owners, working from home is either not possible with social distancing orders, or it provides limited (if any) economic benefits. Businesses are facing massive difficulties in trying…

The “Bardal factors” are widely used in employment law to dictate the length of notice an employee ought to expect on termination: character of employment, age, availability of similar employment and length of service. These factors were well set up for the employment realities of the 20th century: stable 40-hour per week work with insurance…

Can you be fired for having a relationship with your workplace subordinate? Anyone can be fired, but there are protections in place for employees who are terminated without good reason – what is known in employment law as without “just cause”. For example, if employees are going to be fired without just cause they should…