Widow taken advantage of: the supreme Court will hear the appeal of a montreal lawyer

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Maxime Huard

Thursday, 12 October 2017 12:11

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Thursday, 12 October 2017 12:11

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OTTAWA – A lawyer can be held liable for having entrusted its client the services of a third party who turned out to be a fraudster?

The supreme Court of Canada will settle this issue in the coming months, after agreeing on Thursday morning, to hear the appeal of a montreal lawyer in the case against a widow taken advantage of.

The trials and tribulations of Judith Matte-Thompson, a seventy-year-old of Ontario, dating back to 2003, at the time of the death of her husband. It must then liquidate the company of the deceased and also seeks to invest his savings. His attorney at that time, Kenneth Solomon, who practice in a law firm in montréal, him refers, then, Themis Papadopoulos, president of the company Triglobal.

Ms. Matte-Thompson agrees to assign its assets, the value of which amounted to approximately $ 7 million, to Triglobal to realize, in 2007, that Papdopoulos and his partner, Mario Bright, have disappeared with the money.

In a first judgment delivered in 2014 by the Quebec superior Court, Themis Papadopoulos and his sidekick have been ordered to repay $ 7 million. Their investments made through subsidiaries in offshore Ivest and Focus, have proven to be a fraud Ponzi scheme.

Kenneth Solomon and his cabinet, Sternthal Katznelson Montigny, had been exempted from paying damages.

Appealed by Ms. Matte-Thompson, the decision was reversed in February 2017. The Quebec Court of appeal found Mr. Solomon to be jointly and severally liable for fraud committed by Themis Papadopoulos. It ruled that Mr. Salomon had failed in its duty to properly advise his client. Mr. Solomon and his cabinet seek to overturn this judgment.

Judith Matte-Thompson has argued for years that Kenneth Solomon was in a conflict of interest and that it was a business relationship in Triglobal.

The company has been the subject of an investigation of the Autorité des marchés financiers and placed under guardianship in 2007 for his illegal distributions.