Law Times

ABS report: Majority non-lawyer ownership off the table BY NEIL ETIENNE Law Times he debate over alterna- tive business structures may not be over, but for now a working group created to investigate the issue is recommending that non-licensee majority ownership "should not be further examined at this time." "There may be a time soon when better material information will become available, but for now we don't think we should proceed with looking at majority share," Malcolm Mercer, co-chairman of the Law Society of Upper Cana- da's working group on alternative business structures, told Convo- cation on Thursday. While recommending against majority-share non-lawyer owner- ship, the report from the working group suggests "that more limited non-licensee ownership models for traditional law firms merit fur- ther study and that there are cer- tain, tailored ABS models which should be considered in depth." Charles Gluckstein, a former president of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, says it's the ideal decision for the time being. "We're very satisfied. We ana- lyzed the ABS models in the U.K. and Australia and we found noth- ing supportive that would lead to improved access to justice," he says. "As we move forward, we would certainly be open to investigation of other models. Let's see what other jurisdictions may do in the future because while the ABS sys- tem doesn't seem to address ev- erything it is supposed to do right now, it doesn't mean in the future there might not be other models that do." The law society formed the working group in 2012 to study business structures and law firm financing options, much like those adopted in Australia and Britain in recent years. The work- ing group's report this month to Convocation stated that while "generally permitting non-licens- ee majority ownership or control of traditional law firms should not be further examined at this time, the working group considers it appropriate to explore and assess a subset of ABS models which ARE YOU RECEIVING CANADIAN LEGAL NEWSWIRE? Keep abreast of essential legal news, opinions and analysis with our electronic newswire. VISIT OUR WEBSITE WWW.LAWTIMESNEWS.COM SIGN UP FOR FREE From the publisher of and Untitled-4 1 2015-09-23 2:20 PM Lawyer convicted in $1.9M gold case Remy Boghossian says he was a dupe, plans to appeal judge's ruling BY NEIL ETIENNE Law Times n a case that reads like a mystery novel and leaves a number of key questions unanswered, a court has found a Toronto lawyer and two co-accused guilty in a nearly $2-million fraud of the Royal Bank of Canada to purchase unique gold bars. Where those bars are now remains a mystery, but Ontario Superior Court Justice Alfred O'Marra ruled Sept. 8 that Remy Boghossian, a corporate-commercial lawyer and sole practitioner at Boghossian Legal PC on Don Mills Rd., along with Raffi Ebrekdjian, and Siva Suthakaran were guilty of defrauding the bank of an amount in excess of $5,000. He further found Bog- hossian and Ebrekdjian guilty of possessing gold bars knowing the property was obtained by the commis- sion of an indictable offence. The court has tentatively scheduled sentencing for Dec. 4, but Boghossian is pre- paring to appeal. "Mr. Boghossian is obviously very disappointed in the result and intends to pursue an appeal," says Bog- hossian's defence lawyer, Greg Lafontaine. "We will be appealing subsequent to that [sentenc- ing]," says Boghossian's appellate lawyer, Kirkor Apel. He says they will appeal based on the argument that Boghossian was as much a victim as the bank and his co-accused had duped him into depositing a fake bank draft into his firm's accounts to purchase the gold for a supposed client the court determined was created to further the fraud. The judge, however, found otherwise. "I do not CARDING SOLUTION Police should voluntarily remove information P7 FOCUS ON Intellectual Property Law P8 The court found Remy Boghossian deposited a fake bank draft for $1,895,751 into his trust account at the Royal Bank of Canada branch at 1090 Don Mills Rd. in Toronto. Photo: Robin Kuniski See ABS, page 4 See None, page 4 'We would like to see them take it further and look back into majority share,' says Nathalie Picard. PM #40762529 & $#&!&jmmm$cYa[bbWh$Yec ntitled-4 1 12-03-20 10:44 AM $5.00 • Vol. 26, No. 30 September 28, 2015 Follow LAW TIMES on www.twitter.com/lawtimes L AW TIMES I T INJUNCTION REJECTED Cross-border tax obligations take effect P3

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