Judgement in Favor of Navigant Confirmed by the Quebec Court of Appeal

The Quebec Court of Appeal confirmed, in a unanimous decision, a judgment rendered on July 7, 2014 by the Honourable Brian Riordan j.c.s., which had rejected a motion aimed at staying an administrative inquiry of the Régie de l’Assurance Maladie du Québec (RAMQ) on the basis of an alleged conflict of interest and the alleged communication of privileged information by its forensic accountants, Navigant Consulting LJ Inc., represented by Woods.

The Plaintiffs in this case, which include Pharmaprix Inc. and the Quebec pharmacists operating under its banner, sought to obtain, by way of a safeguard order, the stay of the investigation for the duration of the proceedings in first instance, based on a previous mandate that Navigant had received from one of the Quebec pharmacists regarding facts similar to those concerned by the RAMQ’s inquiry.

In his July 2014 decision, Riordan J. had found that the Plainitiffs’ case was not necessarily futile or vexatious, but had refused to order a stay or even to exclude Navigant from the ongoing investigation, based on (1) an absence of irreparable harm, (2) a tenuous connection between the RAMQ inquiry and the earlier Navigant mandate and (3) the inconvenience that the RAMQ (and the public) would suffer should its investigation be stayed.

This decision was confirmed in its entirety by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal, which rejected the Plaintiffs Motions for Leave to Appeal and for Safeguard Order, with costs.

In a wholesale approval of the decision in first instance, the Court of Appeal rejected the Plaintiffs’ argument that an alleged conflict of interest of an accountant or a breach of privilege causes irreparable harm per se, finding that the required irreparable harm must always be proven by the party requesting a stay.

This and other reasons led the Court to find that the appeal presented no chance of success, such that the interests of justice did not favor the granting of leave to appeal.

The decisions of the Superior Court and of the Court of Appeal (in French)may be viewed here: 

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