Northern Superior Initiates Final Preparations for Trial Against the Ontario Government: October 5th, 2015
Sudbury, Ontario, September 8th, 2015 - Northern Superior Resources Inc. (TSXV: SUP) (“Northern Superior” or the “Company”) is now in the final phase of preparation for the trial of its lawsuit against the Ontario Government, scheduled to start October 5th, 2015. Following a busy summer of preparing and processing legal documents and organizing witnesses, several key steps have either been completed, or are in the process of being completed, in preparation for the trial.
Of particular importance was establishing Northern Superior’s quantum of economic damages resulting from the alleged acts and omissions of the Government of Ontario (“Ontario”) which Northern Superior claims caused it to lose access to further explore and develop the Company’s Thorne Lake, Rapson Bay and Meston Lake properties, located in northwestern Ontario. Northern Superior retained NERA, an international economic consulting company specializing in damage assessment and business related valuations, to assist in determining a fair and defensible value for the damages suffered by Northern Superior (see Northern Superior press release, May 11th, 2015). This report was submitted on time, as have all of Northern Superior’s documents to the Ontario Government, on July 21st, 2015.
Subsequently, Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. (“ RPA”), the Ontario Government’s expert witness on this matter, had an opportunity to respond to the NERA report. The Court set a date of August 28th for this purpose. This report (received August 31st) did not contain any substantive response to the valuation opinion in the NERA report. The trial judge has since directed both NERA and RPA to meet and provide to him a summary of their respective positions prior to the pre-trial conference to be held September 17th, 2015.
A second activity, separate but also in pursuit of the litigation, was the acquisition and processing of Ontario government documents under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. The acquisition of these materials turned out to be important for two reasons: 1) Information earlier requested and required to be disclosed but withheld by the Ontario Government was extracted from these materials; and 2) clarification of Government activity (or lack thereof) and insight into the Ontario Government’s decision- making process regarding several key events pertinent to Northern Superior’s case. Despite first having made the request for all FOI materials in September 2013, the Company is still waiting for the final batch of FOI materials and the Government is still resisting disclosure as a result of which the Company has had to file appeals with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.