In Mancinelli v Royal Bank of Canada, a group of trustees, on behalf of the Labourers' Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada, along with an individual plaintiff, reached a settlement with certain Defendants who had been sued in their proposed class action and sought consent certifications for settlement purposes.
The settlements stem from a proposed class action commenced by the Plaintiffs whereby they had sued 16 groups of financial institutions for allegedly conspiring with each other to fix prices in the futures exchange market ("FX Market"). It is alleged that through the use of multiple chat rooms with names such as "The Cartel," "The Bandits' Club," and "The Mafia," the Defendants communicated directly with each other to coordinate their: (i) fixing of spot prices; (ii) control and manipulation of FX benchmark rates; and (iii) exchange of key confidential customer information to trigger client stop loss orders and limit orders. The Plaintiffs allege that the Defendants' conspiracy impacted all manner of FX instruments, including those trading both over-the-counter and on exchanges.
The issue before Justice Perell in Mancinelli v Royal Bank was whether to grant a motion in writing for consent certifications for settlement purposes following the settlements that were reached between the Plaintiffs and two groups of Defendants. In granting the consent certifications, Justice Perell noted that "[t]he fact that an action is certified on consent for settlement purposes does not dispense with the need to meet the certification criteria but they may be less rigorously applied in a settlement context." To that end, it was only after he reviewed the motion record and determined that he was satisfied that all of the criteria for certification had been satisfied that he granted the consent certifications.
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