Unlike most well-adjusted people I do not make a habit of watching the Oscars. I do make a habit, however, of watching movies that were nominated for Oscars (this and the IMDB rating system largely dictate my entertainment choices). Last night, I sat through Dallas Buyers’ Club, which is tipped to win heavily this evening. […] Read more

There was a long piece in the New York Times last week about Britain’s eager adoption of the approach to regulation and law reform set out by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in Nudge: Britain’s Ministry of Nudges. Here is an extract: It is an American idea, refined in American universities and popularized in 2008 […] Read more

Luckily for me, the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on Friday in Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp & Paper, Ltd., 2013 SCC 34 was not unanimous. Otherwise, I would have had to buy a hat and eat it. I discussed the decision on CBC Radio New Brunswick on […] Read more

Penn’s RegBlog is running an interesting series on Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation (UPenn Press, 2012), edited by Cary Coglianese. The series features short versions of the contributions to the book. Here is a brief taste, from a chapter on housing regulation: Regulatory oversight of the housing finance system became reliant […] Read more

For those of you wondering where I have been, I have been partly resting on my laurels since my runner-up award at the Clawbies and partly plotting the overthrow of this year’s winner in the Best Law Professor Blog category, ABlawg, the Calgary Law Faculty’s blog. Normal service should resume over the next couple of […] Read more

If you walk through the city centre streets of Montreal, you could well be walking along any street in North America, such is the predominance of big-name brands. This has long been a bone of contention for Quebeckers. Protest marches are not uncommon. Symbolically, the issue is of great importance, all the more so given […] Read more

At first blush, the result in North End Community Health Association v. Halifax (Regional Municipality), 2012 NSSC 330 is striking. A municipality’s decision to sell an old school to a property developer was held to be unlawful because it breached a duty of fairness to local non-profit organizations and because it was sold at less […] Read more

A decision from the Irish High Court in the long-running saga of Dontex Ltd. v. Dublin Docklands Development Authority, [2012] IEHC 318 is a useful example both of the division between private law and public law and of judicial reluctance to bar claims on the basis that the parties have chosen the wrong juridical route.At […] Read more