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Class Actions (Ont) - Certification - Preferrable Procedure [CPA s.5(1)(d)]. Lochan v. Binance Holdings Limited
In Lochan v. Binance Holdings Limited (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed a class action appeal, here from "the certification of an action brought on behalf of Canadian investors who purchased cryptocurrency derivative products through an asset trading platform operated by the appellants".
The court considers the 'preferrable procedure' element of class action certification:[24] With respect to whether a class proceeding is the “preferable procedure”, the motion judge noted that the OSC has reported that more than half of Canadian cryptocurrency asset owners have less than $5,000 in the market. Consistent with this court’s decision in Fischer v. IG Investment Management Ltd., 2012 ONCA 47, 109 O.R. (3d) 498, at paras. 79-82, the principle of access to justice supports the conclusion that a large number of small individual claims is not preferable to a class proceeding.
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[55] At a practical level, more than half of Canadian crypto asset owners are small investors with less than $5,000 in the market: Lochan v. Binance Holdings Limited, 2023 ONSC 6714, at para. 15. How – and, more importantly, to what end – would these thousands of unsophisticated investors have undertaken the complex task of preparing a prospectus before selecting and clicking on their preferred Cryptocurrency Derivative on the Binance website?
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