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Founded in February of 2021, Ross Nasseri LLP is one of Canada’s best litigation boutiques. The firm is based in Toronto and boasts a team of 18 litigators, including eight partners. The firm has been recognized as a premier boutique by Benchmark Litigation, Chambers, Best Lawyers, Lexpert, and the Globe and Mail, which ranked Ross Nasseri LLP second in the country in Dispute Resolution. Ross Nasseri’s partners are known for their cunning instincts, strategic acumen, and track records of taking difficult cases to trial and appeal.
Our practice is focused on civil, corporate/commercial, regulatory litigation, and class proceedings (including those in the insurance and product liability sectors). We litigate contract disputes, construction cases, estates disputes, professional liability cases, regulatory and administrative proceedings, shareholder disputes, oppression proceedings, and economic torts.
Our clients include regulated professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporations including publicly trade companies like Element Fleet Corporation and industry leading businesses like Douglas Barwick, Questrade, Mercedes Benz Canada, Torstar Corporation, and Grascan Construction Ltd.
We frequently appear before Toronto’s specialized Commercial and Estates Lists and in the Court of Appeal for Ontario. We are also regular attendees at Ontario’s tribunals and discipline committees. We frequently defend professionals in proceedings before their regulators; these mandates include defending health professionals (such as physicians, dentists, naturopaths, and pharmacists), lawyers, and mortgage and real estate professionals. We have extensive experience appearing before the Financial Services Tribunal, the Law Society of Ontario, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Real Estate Council of Ontario, and the colleges that fall under the Regulated Health Professionals Act.
Key practice areas:
- Appellate
- Arbitration
- Class action
- Commercial disputes
- Construction and real estate
- Dispute resolution
- Government and regulatory
- Plaintiff
- University of Toronto (Governing Council) v. Doe et al (2024 ONSC 3755); Acted for two intervenors in an injunction brought by the University of Toronto seeking to end an encampment on its campus.
- Wayne Safety Inc. v. Gendelman, 2023 ONSC 2478, 2023 ONSC 3517 and 2024 ONSC 1642; Obtained extraordinary relief in the form of Anton Piller, Mareva, Norwich relief and multiple certificates of pending litigation to address an ongoing fraud, and resisted an attempted variation of injunction terms
- Lead counsel in a significant adjudication before ODACC (Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts); Obtained over $3 million in compensation for rehabilitation of a major bridge in a rapid-fire proceeding that went to a hearing just two months after a claim was brought. This is the largest award granted in the history of ODACC for an infrastructure project.
- Premium Host Inc. v. Paramount Franchise Group Inc. et al.; Versatile Holdings Inc. v. Paramount Franchise Group Inc. et al.; Everest Group Inc. v. Paramount Franchise Group et al. (aka “The Paramount Trilogy”, 2024 ONCA 577); Successfully represented a franchisor (Paramount) at the Court of Appeal to defend trial victories in respect of franchise/recission claims brought by interrelated franchisees;
- Private Arbitration; Successful counsel for a company in an oppression arbitration. Advanced and won claims on behalf of the company for breach of fiduciary duty, punitive damages, an order that a director/shareholder who committed misconduct against the company be bought out and removed as a director. Successfully secured an award of full indemnity costs
- Baylis et al. v. Burnham; Represented three of the applicants at one of the most significant trials on the Estates list in Toronto (and, previously, acted as lead counsel on successfully third-party production motions, 2023 ONSC 7161, and in resisting appeals at the Court of Appeal, 2024 ONCA 464);
- Fehr v. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, 2024 ONCA 847; Jacqueline Cole (co-counsel to the defendant Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada in one of the longest-running certified class proceedings in Ontario) successfully resisted the plaintiffs’ appeal of a decision dismissing their effort to amend the claim and certify a new common issue;
- Rogers Communications Inc. v. BCE Inc. and Glentel Inc.; Eric Block and Eric Brousseau act for Glentel Inc. (jointly and equally owned by Rogers and Bell) in an injunction relating to its distribution agreements with each of its co-owners
- Napoli Shkolnik Canada et al v. KOT Law Professional Corporation et al; Eric Block and Eric Brousseau act for a plaintiffs’ class action firm in bringing an injunction against an alleged former rogue partner;
- Co-counsel to the Receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc., since the spring of 2021. Bridging Finance was an alternative lender with a reported $2 billion net asset value and over 26,000 retail investors. It was put into Receivership after an investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission detected fraud by certain of its executives;
- Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia; Successfully represented the National Association of Women and the Law in their intervention application at the Supreme Court of Canada on the proposed new tort of family violence (which appeal will be heard in 2025);
- Wayne Safety v. Gendelman et al. (2023 ONSC 2478); Obtained Mareva, Anton Piller, Norwich and other urgent injunctive relief in relation to a $5.6 million fraud by a company’s bookkeeper. He has also had an initial motion to vary the Mareva largely dismissed (2023 ONSC 3517), and a further motion to vary the Mareva completely dismissed (2024 ONSC 1642).
- Binscarth Holdings LP v. Anthony et al. (2022 ONSC 3426 and 2022 ONSC 5526); Acted for the respondents to a motion for leave to commence a derivative action. The Court authorized only a narrow derivative action
- Kiosk Design Inc. v. El-Riffaey (2024 ONSC 2373); Obtained an urgent Mareva injunction and Norwich order on behalf of the plaintiffs in an action for fraud and breach of contract (which fraud the trial judge described as appearing “to be a classic Ponzi scheme”).
- Acted as counsel for several individual and corporate respondents in a multi-million dollar family dispute regarding ownership of corporate assets, including allegations of fraud and oppression
- Acting for shareholders in an oppression dispute involving a closely held corporation overseeing the development of a significant condominium project in the GTA
