Introducing The Review of Enterprise and Trade Law

After more than a year of hard work and planning, the editorial team at the Manitoba Law Journal announces the inaugural release of its newest dimension: The Review of Enterprise and Trade Law (TRETL). The release of the MLJ’sVolume 46, Issue 7 follows the merging of the freshly-minted Desautels Review and the long-standing Asper Review of International Business and Trade Law. TRETL will be the MLJ’s sixth dimension of publication, focussing on broad legal issues faced by business and trade globally as well as local issues respecting trade and enterprise in Manitoba.

The torch of the Desautels Review was passed from former Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Virginia Torrie, to the MLJ’s Co-Editors-in-Chief Dr. Bryan Schwartz and Professor Darcy MacPherson. The excellent work done through Desautels by Dr. Torrie’s team has been invaluable and provides a strong foundation for TRETL, as does the Asper Review’s reputation as a leading publication in the realm of international business and trade law. The range of papers included in this issue set the stage for the many issues yet to be covered.

Photo credit: Joey Senft on Unsplash.

Contributors Sarah Richardson and Virginia Torrie each take different looks at an integral aspect of life, business, and economic trade in Manitoba: modern farming. Their respective articles are literally “barn burners” with Richardson raising a discussion of the regulatory and legal protections – or lack thereof – afforded to farmers and their livestock facing the very real issue of barn fires. Torrie looks back almost a century to the Great Depression and its impact on prairie farmers through the ensuing enactment of the Farmers’ Creditors Arrangement Act. Her article takes an empirical look at FCAA applications and whether this program has kept “the farmer on the farm” as it aimed to.

Darcy MacPherson discusses the remediation-agreement regime and the scandal within the SNC-Lavalin Affair. He asks whether said regime does enough to provide appropriate legal guidance to executive actors, and should a Prime Minister dancing the “Cabinet Shuffle” undermine decisions made by the previous Attorney General. MacPherson finishes by outlining concerns in the organization and wording of Subsection 715.32(2), and its reliance on “one-way factors.”

Joel Badali focusses on employment law in First Nations communities, the uneven application of Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, and the principle therein that First Nations employers ought to be held to Provincial employment standards in all but specific cases. He looks to instances of inconstant application (i.e. in schools and Human Rights regimes), the effects that the competing jurisdictions would have, and argues for a more consistent application of Provincial jurisdiction.

Bradley Bryan also looks to Indigenous issues, specifically the constraints placed on Indigenous governments & Indigenous economic development corporations by limited partnership law. He outlines how inconsistent interpretation of legal rights and responsibilities between limited partnerships, limited partners, and Indigenous governing bodies has led to difficulties for Indigenous governments hoping to use limited partnerships for investments while protecting themselves from liability. Bryan illustrates through the lens of recent cases how this is currently hindering reconciliation and efforts at “inclusion without assimilation.”

Martin-Joe Ezeudo’s case comment on Ontario’s Libfeld v. Libfeld picks apart the convoluted web of business instruments and relationship/relational breakdowns over a multi-generational development empire, in order to explore the merit of the decision. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice was tasked with fairly untangling the four remaining brothers’ assets, “winding-up” an unusually structured partnership – one littered with corporate holdings, about 350 purpose-built corporate entities, and worth between $2.5-$4 billion.

Finally in a notable collaboration between professor and student, MacPherson and recent law graduate, Matthew London [JD/2024] offer a review of John Carreyrou’s book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies Inside a Silicon Valley Start-Up, a tale of the rise and fall of Theranos Inc. and its founder Elizabeth Holmes. This review provides a substantive summary of the work, as well as critical and theoretical insight to legal principles not fully delved into by this piece of popular literature, and why it should matter to a Canadian audience. For anybody who followed the Theranos scandal, this review is a must-read.

Read the MLJ’s Volume 46, Issue 7, The Review of Enterprise and Trade Law (2024) online on the Manitoba Law Journalwebsite.

Story submitted by Steven Csincsa, 3L