Despite the uptick last year in securities class actions in the U.S., Canadian securities class actions filings were down. Last year saw the lowest level of activity since 2003 with only four suits filed while the historic annual average is seven suites filed annually. Since 2008, an annual average of 12 suits have been filed with 14 filed in 2014.  Securities suits significantly dropped in 2015 mainly because of the trilogy of high profiled decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada. These cases raised the necessary threshold to proceed with a securities class action suit in Canada, which could be a big reason for the sudden drop in filings.

Out of the four cases filed in Canada, two of the filings had a corresponding suit filed in the U.S. There have been 68 secondary market suits brought to Canada and out of those, 48% of them have also had securities suits in the U.S. Out of all the sectors that involved securities class actions, the mineral sector have represented almost half of the filings since 2010. Despite a slow year, the number of settlements increased with seven settlements and six dismissals. The seven settlements resulted in $107 million in 2015 compared to the historical annual average of $71 million a year. Out of the 129 total filed securities class actions in Canada, 10% of them have been dismissed.

To learn more about securities class actions in Canada click here.

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