CIPPIC Granted Leave to Intervene in NHK Spring Co. Ltd. v. Cheung at the Supreme Court of Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada has granted CIPPIC leave to intervene in NHK Spring Co., Ltd. et al. v. Tony Cheung, Sylvie De Bellefeuille and Graeme Honeyman (SCC File No. 41451). The appeal concerns the rules for assuming jurisdiction over foreign defendants when tortious conduct occurs abroad but causes harm in Canada.

Background

The underlying dispute involves an alleged international price-fixing cartel in the hard disk drive suspension assembly market. The Respondents, indirect purchasers in British Columbia, commenced a class action against a group of foreign manufacturers, alleging that the cartel caused them to pay artificially inflated prices for consumer electronics. The Appellants argue that Canadian courts lack adjudicative jurisdiction because the conduct alleged against them occurred entirely outside Canada, and that local harm alone cannot ground a claim.

The Legal Issues

This appeal asks the Supreme Court to clarify the jurisdiction simpliciter test where foreign defendants commit tortious conduct abroad that causes harm in Canada. Specifically, the Court must determine whether jurisdiction can be grounded where the plaintiff experiences the harm—or whether it is limited to where the defendant acted. While the case arises in a competition law context, the ruling will establish jurisdictional precedents that apply across all tortious claims with a cross-border dimension, including those arising from digital harms.

CIPPIC's Intervention

CIPPIC will argue that courts must reject a rigid "conduct-only" rule for locating a tort. Such a rule would create insurmountable barriers to justice for victims of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, online cyberbullying, and internet defamation—harms that disproportionately affect marginalized and vulnerable groups. For digital dissemination torts specifically, CIPPIC will submit that the tort crystallizes where third parties access or download the harmful content. CIPPIC will further argue that a conduct-only rule is constitutionally problematic, as it renders the rights of vulnerable litigants illusory and offends the rule of law. Finally, CIPPIC will demonstrate that strict conduct-only limits are unnecessary: the existing Van Breda framework already deploys robust safeguards at the rebuttal stage to prevent jurisdictional overreach.

Other Interveners

The Supreme Court also granted leave to seven other interveners: the Attorney General of Canada, the Attorney General of Ontario, the Public Interest Litigation Institute, the Consumers Council of Canada, Meta Platforms Inc., the Criminal Lawyers' Association (Ontario), and Pass Herald Ltd.