The Osgoode Securities Class Actions Database (OSCAD) provides key data and findings on secondary market securities class actions in Canada.

Securities class actions are lawsuits brought against public companies by a group of their shareholders for losses incurred as a result of misrepresentations made. Securities class actions for secondary market misrepresentations were virtually non-existent in Canada before 2005. The introduction of a statutory civil liability framework for secondary market misrepresentations changed that.

Ontario was the first Canadian province to introduce a statutory civil liability framework for secondary market misrepresentations on December 31, 2005, followed by other provinces. In Canada, both primary market and secondary market misrepresentations can now be brought under a statutory civil liability framework.

The first of its kind in Canada, OSCAD  provides 10 years of data on secondary market securities class actions from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2015. The data will be updated periodically. The database also includes academic articles and presentations based on the data collected.

The OSCAD is an independent academic resource, and we are not aware of any other similar published academic studies.

If you have any questions, please email us at oscad@osgoode.yorku.ca.

Key Data Collected

Our research team identified and obtained information on multiple variables including:

• the type of plaintiff leading the class (retail or institutional);
• the defendants' market capitalization and industry;
• plaintiffs' counsel;
• settlement amounts; and
• the progression of the claim.

To access the database, please click here. For a PowerPoint on the key findings, please click here.

Key Findings

Based on the data collected, our key findings included the following:

• plaintiffs and their lawyers tended to pursue relatively large, but not the largest, companies with a median market capitalization of $1.2 billion;
• a disproportionately high percentage of mining companies were subject to securities class actions, while financial institutions were disproportionately less likely to be named as a defendant;
• retail investors were more likely to commence actions as compared to institutional investors;
• institutional investors were not substantially more likely to obtain a settlement than retail investors. However, when institutional investor-led cases settled, they resulted in settlements, on average, nearly three times more as compared to the settlements obtained by retail investors; and
• as of June 2017, not a single case had been heard on its merits, 58% of the total cases were settled, dismissed, or time barred and settlement amounts ranged from $105,000 to $166 million, with a median of $12 million.

For more details on our key findings, please click here. For a PowerPoint on the key findings, please click here.

Methodology

For the purposes of this database, a claim was considered to have commenced when the initial statement of claim was issued. All data collected was based on publicly available information and is current as of June 2017. The cases were collected from the Canadian Bar Association’s National Class Action Database, commercial databases, such as Westlaw and Quicklaw and plaintiff's counsel websites, and were cross-referenced against each another.

Market Capitalization Data

Data on the market capitalization of the defendant public companies was collected from the Bloomberg Terminal, where the data was available. For each defendant public company, the market capitalization was measured on the last trading day one month prior to the class action filing date.

Where a public company was subject to more than one class action, the company’s market capitalization was measured on the last trading day one month prior to each class action filing date. The data did not differ significantly based on each company’s market capitalization measured only on the last trading day one month prior to the earliest class action filing date from the company’s market capitalization as measured on the last trading day one month prior to each class action filing date.

Settlement Value Data

Often cases  involved more than one settlement with multiple defendants. In some instances, all settlements occurred at the same time, while in others, different defendants settled separately. For the purposes of this database, all settlements corresponding to the same claim are aggregated. Unique settlements involving no payment to the plaintiffs and an agreement for both parties to cover their own costs (there is one such settlement in our database so far), have been excluded from the settlement value figures as outliers.

Contact Us

For any inquiries, please contact us at oscad@osgoode.yorku.ca. For any feedback on the content of our database, please contact Poonam Puri at ppuri@osgoode.yorku.ca.

Partners and Sponsors

OSCAD is supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant and by Osgoode Hall Law School.

 

Disclaimer

The information included on this database is provided for research and teaching purposes only. Neither Osgoode Hall Law School, nor any of their employees, agents, contractors, or affiliates warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information or analyses displayed herein, and we caution all readers that inclusion of any information on this site does not constitute an endorsement of the truthfulness or accuracy of that information.