What is a Fiduciary Duty? A fiduciary duty is when an employee has a common law obligation to put his employer’s interest above his own. It is the duty of a fiduciary to act honestly and in good faith, always with a view to the best interests of the employer. Who has a Fiduciary Duty? …
Executive Employment Law
Yes, you do have to give notice of your resignation in Canada. The common law imposes a duty to provide notice of resignation on all employees. However, you don’t have to give two weeks’ notice of your resignation in Canada per se. Rather, you have to give a “reasonable” amount of notice of your resignation, …
Is there a special rule for calculating severance for professionals? Are employees who are professionals such as lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants etc. entitled to a reasonable notice ‘bump’ on account of their professional status? Yes – an employee’s professional status has been found to be an important factor increasing the reasonable notice period (i.e. severance) …
Summary It is the terms of an Equity Agreement, Shareholders’ Agreement or Stock Plan that determine employees’ rights with respect to shares. The common law relating to compensation for breaches of a contract of employment (i.e. reasonable notice) does not apply to shares where there is a distinct agreement. Recent Case Law Some executives have …
Dutton Employment law is an executive employment law group within the Monkhouse law firm located on Bay Street in Toronto. We represent individual clients in all employment and HR matters in all industries, especially tech, oil and gas, mining, communications, marketing and advertising. We are located in Toronto but represent clients world-wide on issues with …
Sometimes, an employer decides to force an executive to sign a new contract while they are still working (usually in case of promotion, or because the executive doesn’t have a contract already, or the employer wants to update the termination clause in an existing contract, or because the employer simply thinks the executive earns too …
There is no rule that 24 months’ is the absolute maximum amount of reasonable notice a long-standing, senior employee can receive in Ontario (see my earlier blog post on the topic here). To that effect, in Lowndes, the Ontario Court of Appeal observed that calculating reasonable notice is “case-specific” and, while there is “no absolute …
Employment contracts outline an employee and employer’s agreed upon terms and conditions, usually at the very least salary and job description. However, it is a best practice for both parties, especially at the at the executive level, to include more than just salary and job description. Executive employment contracts are in fact usually different from …