Royal Bank of Canada v. Ren

Royal Bank of Canada v. Ren, 2009 ONCA 48

Ontario Court of Appeal
January 20, 2009

The defendants sought to exclude evidence obtained by bank investigators showing the distribution of fraudulently obtained mortgage funds. They alleged that certain provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA) were inconsistent with s. 8 of the Charter and that accessing defendants’ bank account information by plaintiff, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), represented by Milton Davis and Kelli Preston, violated their s. 8 Charter rights. The Court noted that the main person involved in the alleged fraud against the RBC was David Molson, RBC’s solicitor for the mortgage transactions. As such, he was duty bound to disclose to the RBC the information he alleged the RBC obtained in contravention of his s. 8 Charter rights. the Court held that the in the circumstances, the Charter was not engaged, and there had been no violation of their rights. There was no expectation of privacy in the records relating to RBC’s suspect mortgage transactions. Dismissing the appeal, the Court held that in case of fraud, the PIPEDA provides for limited information sharing between private business organizations and private investigative bodies to protect such organizations’ economic interests.