Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Closure of a class action against Banque de Montréal arising from the exfiltration of client data was the sole matter before the Court.
• Settlement funds totalled up to $21,223,075, composed of a fixed fund of $12,757,540 and a claims-based fund of up to $8,465,535 under a national settlement agreement approved in 2021.
• Distribution of both funds was documented through two reports prepared by the claims administrator, Epiq, in September 2025.
• Residual (cy-près) amounts of the fixed fund were distributed to Centre Pro Bono Québec, CIPPIC, and Pro Bono Canada in accordance with the distribution protocol.
• Payments to the Fonds d'aide aux actions collectives (FAAC) were made under the applicable regulation, including a $30,000 amount held in trust pending the Court of Appeal's Ticketmaster decision.
• Uncashed claims-based indemnities totalling $29,028.75 were returned to the defendant in January 2026, as provided in the protocol.

Facts of the case

Hugo Beauvais-Lamy sought a closing judgment for a class action brought against Banque de Montréal on behalf of the bank's clients whose data had been exfiltrated. The application for authorization to institute the class action was filed on September 27, 2018. On February 14, 2019, the Quebec file was suspended pending the outcome of Mallette v. Bank of Montreal, a related file before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. On October 3, 2020, the parties concluded a national settlement agreement, which was modified by an addendum dated December 14, 2020. The Superior Court approved the settlement agreement and the distribution protocol on June 2, 2021, and designated the firm Epiq as claims administrator.

Settlement terms and clauses at issue

Under the national settlement agreement, the defendant was to pay a sum of up to $21,223,075, made up of a fixed settlement fund of $12,757,540, payable without the need to file claims, and a claims-based settlement fund of up to $8,465,535, payable upon presentation of claims. The distribution protocol governed how these funds were to be paid out, including the transmission of amounts to the Fonds d'aide aux actions collectives (FAAC) under the Règlement sur le pourcentage prélevé par le Fonds d'aide aux actions collectives, the cy-près distribution of residual funds, and the return of uncashed claims-based indemnities to the defendant.

The court's reasoning and analysis

Justice Martin F. Sheehan reviewed the administrator's two September 2025 reports. For the fixed fund, after payment of lawyers' fees ($3,184,385), taxes on fees in Ontario ($393,889.05) and Quebec ($23,880.52), disbursements including taxes ($199,045.07), and an Ontario honorarium ($5,000), a sum of $8,951,340.36 remained for distribution. The administrator issued 62,208 cheques totalling $8,608,389.28; of these, 45,296 eligible claimants cashed their fixed indemnity ($6,400,065.18 in total), while 16,912 did not ($2,208,324.10). Together with after-tax interest of $60,340.43, an undisbursed sum of $342,951.08, and a rounding difference of $0.18, the residue totalled $2,611,615.79. An initial sum of $244,907.81 was transmitted to the FAAC, and $30,000 was held in trust pending the final judgment in the Ticketmaster file concerning the method of calculating the amount owed to the FAAC. In mid-November 2025, a cy-près distribution of residual funds was made: $117,817.63 to Centre Pro Bono Québec, $1,106,945.18 to CIPPIC, and $1,106,945.17 to Pro Bono Canada. Following the Court of Appeal's Ticketmaster judgment of April 8, 2026, with no application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada filed, class counsel transmitted the $30,000 cheque to the FAAC on June 12, 2026, completing the fixed fund's distribution. As for the claims-based fund, the claim period expired on April 11, 2022. A total of 3,705 claims were filed for $279,056.40, of which 943 came from Quebec members; the administrator issued 3,705 cheques, 3,297 of which were cashed ($249,612.90), leaving 408 uncashed indemnities ($29,443.50). In April 2025, six additional payments totalling $310.50 were made to eligible claimants inadvertently omitted from the initial distribution, including two from Quebec, of which only $288 was cashed. The 945 Quebec claims totalled $72,009.90, each under $2,000, and 2% of that amount, or $1,440.20, was paid to the FAAC. In January 2026, the balance of uncashed indemnities, totalling $29,028.75, was returned to the defendant as provided in the protocol, and all claims-based funds were thereby distributed.

Ruling and outcome

The Court granted the application for a closing judgment, approved the claims administrator's reports of September 10 and 11, 2025, and pronounced the closure of the class action, the whole without legal costs. The outcome favoured the plaintiff, Hugo Beauvais-Lamy, and the class members he represented, who benefited from the previously approved national settlement under which the defendant was to pay up to $21,223,075; this closing judgment itself, however, ordered no new monetary award and confirmed that all settlement funds had been fully distributed.