Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of the 10-day time limit in section 115.18 LESF as a strict “délai d’appel” whose extension is governed by the standard of impossibilité d’agir, rather than the more flexible “if necessary” test under article 84 C.p.c.
• Interaction between the special appeal regime in the Loi sur l’encadrement du secteur financier and the general appellate framework of the Code de procédure civile, including the effect of article 115.19 LESF’s renvoi to the C.p.c.
• Determination of whether the AMF exercised sufficient diligence in attempting to serve the declaration of appeal on an unrepresented respondent now domiciled in Spain, using the Hague Service Convention mechanism.
• Assessment of the evidentiary value of conflicting address information: the Spanish address given under oath at TAMF in March 2025 versus the unchanged Quebec address on the TAMF file, which the law requires to be updated.
• Evaluation of whether international service through the Hague Convention within 10 days is realistically possible, especially in light of the Spanish central authority’s silence and the respondent’s refusal to accept simpler modes of service.
• Consideration of counsel conduct and procedural tactics, including last-minute changes to representation and their impact on the feasibility of service and on the impossibility-to-act analysis.

Background and procedural context

The dispute arises from enforcement proceedings initiated by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) before the Tribunal administratif des marchés financiers (TAMF) against Karl Addison and Kristel Miville-Deschênes. In a decision dated 16 January 2026, an administrative judge of the TAMF ordered a stay of the AMF’s proceedings against both respondents. Dissatisfied with that outcome, the AMF exercised its statutory right of appeal to the Cour du Québec, Administrative and Appeal Division. The appeal is governed by the Loi sur l’encadrement du secteur financier (LESF) and, by renvoi, the general appeal provisions in the Code de procédure civile (C.p.c.). Under section 115.17 LESF, the appeal must be formed by filing a declaration of appeal within 30 days of the TAMF’s final decision, and this filing deadline can be extended only if the party demonstrates an impossibilité d’agir. Under section 115.18 LESF, the declaration of appeal then has to be served on the parties and notified to the TAMF within 10 days of its filing.

Facts regarding the appeal and service difficulties

The AMF filed its declaration of appeal on 13 February 2026, well within the 30-day period running from the TAMF’s 16 January 2026 stay decision. Within that appeal, both Karl Addison and Kristel Miville-Deschênes are respondents. Mr. Addison was personally and validly served within the 10-day statutory period. The difficulty arose only in relation to Ms. Miville-Deschênes. At the time of the TAMF hearing in March 2025, she had given an address in Spain when sworn in as a witness. However, she had not updated her address in the official TAMF file, despite the regulatory obligation to do so. The address in that file still pointed to a Quebec residence. Relying on the official file, the AMF instructed a bailiff to serve the declaration of appeal at the Quebec address. On 16 February 2026, the bailiff made service attempts and reported that Ms. Miville-Deschênes was in fact living in Spain. Stein Monast, acting for the AMF, quickly followed up with the bailiff and, on 18 February 2026, relayed the information about her residence in Spain to internal AMF counsel. That same day, Stein Monast contacted the lawyers at Dupuis Paquin—then representing both Mr. Addison and Ms. Miville-Deschênes—to ask them to accept service on behalf of Ms. Miville-Deschênes. No consent was given and no reply was provided.

International service and the Hague Service Convention

Also on 18 February 2026, Stein Monast initiated the process of international service to Spain through the central authority mechanism provided by the Hague Service Convention of 15 November 1965. The evidence before the Court showed that the Hague route is procedurally complex and often time-consuming. By the date of the hearing on the motion, repeated follow-ups to the Spanish central authority had not yielded any response or confirmation of progress. Ms. Miville-Deschênes, now without active counsel of record, made very clear that she would not accept service by email, by private arrangements, or through any channel other than formal service pursuant to the Hague Convention. She expressly acknowledged that this position was likely to cause significant delay in the appeal process but chose to maintain it. In parallel, there was procedural turbulence regarding her representation. Dupuis Paquin had recently filed a representation act listing both respondents as clients, then, on the eve of the hearing, attempted to file a “modified” representation act removing her name. The Court ultimately struck that modified act as procedurally improper, noting that a lawyer can only cease to act through recognized forms such as revocation of mandate, notice of substitution, or a notice to cease acting. Nonetheless, as a practical matter, Ms. Miville-Deschênes appeared and confirmed she no longer wished to be represented by Dupuis Paquin for this motion, even though that firm still represents her in “other matters.”

Legal issue on the applicable extension standard

The first legal question was what standard governs an extension of the 10-day service period in section 115.18 LESF. The AMF argued that article 84 C.p.c., which allows courts to adjust deadlines “if the court considers it necessary,” should apply, making the 10-day period a more flexible procedural time limit. Mr. Addison countered that, read together with sections 115.17, 115.18, and 115.19 LESF and the appeal provisions of the C.p.c., the 10-day service period is itself an appeal delay and therefore subject to the stricter impossibilité d’agir standard. The Court started from the text of LESF: section 115.17 explicitly says the 30-day filing deadline may only be extended for impossibility to act; section 115.18 does not use that explicit wording for service. On a literal view, one might infer that the legislature intentionally made service a more flexible, non-strict time limit. However, the judge stressed that the LESF appeal regime is not self-contained. Section 115.19 incorporates, by renvoi and “with necessary adaptations,” the general appeal rules of the C.p.c. The Court then examined the interaction with C.p.c. articles 352, 360, and 363. Article 352 provides that the Court of Appeal is seized and the appeal is formed upon filing a declaration of appeal with proof of service; article 360 deals with the 30-day filing deadline; and article 363 states that “the time limits for appeal are strict.” By analogy and in light of a consistent line of case law on similar statutory appeal schemes, the Court held that service of the declaration of appeal is an essential step in “seizing” the appellate court and therefore forms part of the “time limits for appeal” that are of strict nature. In the Court’s view, without service there is no properly formed appeal and the appellate jurisdiction is not seized. That conclusion was reinforced by the role of service in triggering subsequent appeal timelines such as applications to dismiss, filing of factums, and inscription for hearing. Accordingly, the service period in section 115.18 LESF is a strict appeal delay subject to extension only in case of impossibilité d’agir.

Adaptation of the general appeal regime to the special statute

Having characterized the service deadline as a strict appeal delay, the Court then had to decide which extension criteria apply. Under article 363 C.p.c., a late appeal can be saved where the appellant shows, among other things, impossibility to act and reasonable chances of success. Yet section 115.17 LESF already modifies that general rule by providing only one criterion—impossibility to act—for an extension of the filing deadline. Reading the appeal scheme as a whole, and applying principles of statutory interpretation that emphasize context and coherence, the Court held that the legislature, by spelling out a single criterion in section 115.17, intended to derogate from the broader criteria otherwise applicable under article 363 C.p.c. It would be inconsistent, the judge reasoned, if the law imposed a stricter, multi-pronged test to extend the service deadline than it does to extend the filing deadline, when both steps—filing and service—are inextricably linked and together constitute the process of forming an appeal and seizing the appellate court. On that basis, the Court concluded that the only relevant test for extending the 10-day service period in section 115.18 LESF is whether the AMF was in a situation of impossibilité d’agir, understood in the established jurisprudence as a relative, not absolute, impossibility.

Assessment of impossibility to act and diligence

The second key issue was whether the AMF had met that standard. Mr. Addison argued that the AMF had been aware since 27 March 2025—when Ms. Miville-Deschênes testified before TAMF—that she lived in Spain. He said the AMF should have taken steps well before February 2026 to prepare for international service and to start the Hague Convention process, particularly since its decision to appeal was made shortly after the TAMF ruling in January 2026. In his view, the AMF’s delay in acting until mid-February showed a lack of diligence that disqualified it from relying on impossibilité d’agir. The Court rejected this reasoning on several fronts. First, it clarified the temporal focus: the relevant question is whether, starting on 13 February 2026 (the filing date of the declaration of appeal), the AMF was able to complete service within the 10-day period ending 23 February 2026. Whether the AMF could or should have filed its appeal sooner is legally irrelevant, because filing earlier would not have extended the statutory 10-day service window that begins only once the declaration of appeal is filed. Second, the Court found that a sworn statement of a Spanish address in March 2025 did not conclusively prove that Ms. Miville-Deschênes was still residing at that address nearly a year later. Given that the TAMF rules formally require parties to keep their address of record updated, the AMF was entitled to rely on the official file rather than on an old oral statement. Third, the Court reasoned that it would be illogical—indeed impossible—for a party to initiate Hague Convention service steps before the actual appeal document exists. The suggestion that the AMF should have “taken advance steps” before filing the appeal was dismissed as conceptually flawed.

International service constraints and respondent conduct

On the evidentiary record, the Court found that the AMF had acted promptly and diligently once it had the declaration of appeal in hand. It instructed a bailiff by 16 February 2026, reacted swiftly when told Ms. Miville-Deschênes was in Spain, sought consent to alternative service through her then-counsel on 18 February, and on that same day engaged the Spanish central authority under the Hague Convention. Despite these efforts, the Hague process had not advanced within the 10-day period, nor by the date of the hearing, due entirely to delays on the foreign authority’s side. The judge noted that, in practice, it is unrealistic to expect completion of cross-border service under the Hague Convention in as little as 10 days. He also observed that Ms. Miville-Deschênes’s firm insistence on strict Hague service—and refusal to accept any commonly used alternative methods such as service through counsel or by email—effectively crystallized the AMF’s situation of impossibility. While a relative impossibility is sufficient, the Court went so far as to characterize this one as virtually absolute, because the outcome was now dependent on the actions (or inaction) of a foreign central authority and on a respondent unwilling to cooperate. The Court further expressed concern about the timing and form of Dupuis Paquin’s attempts to step back from representing Ms. Miville-Deschênes the night before the hearing, calling it suggestive of tactical manoeuvring. That conduct had the practical effect of closing an otherwise standard, efficient channel of service through counsel of record.

Outcome of the motions and overall result

Applying the legal framework and the factual findings, the Court held that the 10-day service period in section 115.18 LESF is a strict appeal delay and that the only applicable criterion for extending it is impossibilité d’agir. It then concluded that the AMF had demonstrated a genuine impossibility to serve the declaration of appeal on Ms. Miville-Deschênes within the 10-day period, despite diligent efforts, primarily because of the inherent complexity and inherent delays of Hague Convention service to Spain, compounded by Ms. Miville-Deschênes’s refusal to accept any alternative method. As a result, the Court granted the AMF’s motion to extend the service deadline. It formally extended the time limit under section 115.18 LESF for service of the declaration of appeal on Ms. Miville-Deschênes until 23 May 2026 and awarded the AMF its costs of the motion. No damages or other substantive monetary relief were ordered in this judgment; the exact amount of costs, if any are ultimately taxed or agreed, cannot be determined from the decision. The successful party in this phase of the litigation is therefore the AMF.