Two Canadian lawyers have been awarded $500,000 in legal costs from the Law Society of Canada after winning a conflict of interest case concerning Hollinger Inc. The Society had initiated a five year case against Torys lawyers Darren Sukonick and Beth DeMerchant. The Society claimed they should not have acted for both Hollinger and the Hollinger executive group in  a controversial deal where Hollinger agreed to pay a group of Hollinger executives, including Conrad Black,  $80 million  in ‘non-compete’ payments from the assets of newspaper sales.

Justified

The Law Society Tribunal said that whilst the Law Society was justified initially in pursuing the case, it should have abandoned it when it obvious that the Law Society could not refute the pair’s evidence that their actions were justified when dealing with sophisticated clients. The two lawyers were exonerated last year but sought $3.6 million from the Law Society for costs.