TELUS Digital investor suit clears Court of Appeal hurdle
Three claims are on the table: a securities-law claim for misleading investors after shares hit the secondary market, a claim that shareholders were treated unfairly, and an ordinary negligence claim. Because the securities-law claim needs a judge’s sign-off before it can proceed, the shareholder also asked for that permission, known as leave, at the same time he filed his case.
That’s where the fight actually landed in front of the Court of Appeal. Back in August 2025, a case management judge applied the legal test used for scheduling these disputes and decided the request for permission and the request to certify the class action should be argued at one hearing, not two. TELUS pushed back, saying permission has to be sorted out first because, without it, there’s technically no valid claim yet. The company also argued that’s simply how it’s usually done.
The judges weren’t convinced. Justice Riley, writing for a unanimous panel, said the case management judge was free to weigh the cost of running two hearings against the risk of years of delay from separate appeals, and that his call held up. As the judge who made the original decision put it, “one case does not constitute a practice.”
Nothing about who’s right or wrong in the underlying dispute has been decided. What has changed is the runway: the permission fight and the certification fight will now play out together, not one after the other. For advisors, compliance teams, and anyone tracking TELUS Digital, it’s a signal that Canadian courts are sticking with a flexible, case-by-case approach to scheduling these disputes, rather than forcing every AI-disclosure class action down the same procedural path.
