Legal Blog

Exchange Rates

Hollowcore Inc. v. Visocchi 2016 Ont CA

Claim was made against engineers both for breach of contract and for professional negligence. Most of the damages were in US dollars. Section 121 of the Courts of Justice Act states that the exchange rate to convert into Canadian dollars is to be determined as of the date of judgment, but gives the court discretion to pick another time if the default time would be inequitable to any party. The trial judge picked the date of the statement of claim in 2000 rather than the date of the judgment in 2015. The exchange rate to a Canadian conversion was far more favourable in 2000. The Court noted the trial judge’s awareness that a change of the exchange rates alone could not create an inequity; however, the passage that the Court quoted indicated only that the inequitable positions arose from a change of the exchange rate.

Written by Jonathan Speigel Jonathan Speigel, the founding partner of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP, leads the litigation and construction practices.