Senior Managing Director Bradley Heys, Managing Director Robert Patton, and Consultant Jielei Mao have released their annual report reviewing securities class actions in Canada. “Trends in Canadian Securities Class Actions: 2024 Update” contains analysis based on NERA’s proprietary database of information on securities class actions in Canada. The report covers trends in the past year’s filings and considerations for 2025.

Highlights from the report include:

• Fourteen new securities class actions were filed in Canada during 2024, six more than the eight filings in each of 2022 and 2023 and only one short of the record 15 new filings in each of 2019 and 2020.
• All 14 filings in 2024 are Statutory Secondary Market cases, 13 of which are class actions brought on behalf of investors in securities listed on public stock exchanges.
• No new cases were related to the cannabis or cryptocurrency sectors, even as the total number of new Statutory Secondary Market cases in 2024 matched the all-time high.
• Six of the 14 new cases were filed only in Ontario, two cases were filed only in British Columbia, one case was filed in both Ontario and British Columbia, and one case was filed only in Alberta. Four cases were filed in Quebec in 2024 (one of which was also filed in Ontario) after no filings in Quebec in 2022 or 2023.
• Only three of the 14 new cases filed in Canada during 2024 had parallel US actions as of the end of the year. Four other Canadian-domiciled companies were named as defendants in US securities class actions filed during 2024, but there are no parallel Canadian filings involving these companies as of the end of 2024
• Four Canadian securities class actions were settled during 2024, compared to the seven settlements in 2023 and one more than the three settlements in 2022.
• Although reflecting only four settlements, the median settlement of $11.9 million in 2024 is almost twice the median settlement of $6.3 million for the 35 settlements reached over the previous six years.

Further analysis can be found in NERA’s full report. Interested readers looking for more information or who have specific questions are invited to contact the authors directly.