By the BCSC perhaps passing the buck here in this battle and perhaps burdening shareholders with legal fees to define a democracy, the Ombudsperson should be able to help. The dissidents should not have to incur legal expenses to protect investors when it is the responsibility of the regulators, namely the BCSC for the purpose of this post. I believe it quite possible for a demand letter to be filed at a later date demanding all legal fees to be reimbursed by the BCSC to the Dissident group. Whereas this possible loop hole is in the system that Lori has used temporarly, it is not shareholders responsibility to change or legislate protection laws of any regulator, and the burdensome costs should not be encumbered by shareholders either. IMO, there is reasonable cause for a request of this nature, to have all legal fees reimbursed by those that stated they had the power to offer protection and uphold integrity.

Here is an example of a case an ombudsperson helped with;

Legal Costs Paid

Legal Costs Paid
Sunshine Coast Regional District

As a general principle, authorities are familiar with their mandates and their ability to take actions in their field of expertise. While this principle would not apply to situations where the state of the law or the empowering legislation is unclear, members of the public should not be required to hire lawyers to inform authorities of what the authority can and cannot do. When this occurs and an authority clearly recognizes that it should have known that it could not do what it was trying to do, we believe it fair for the authority to absorb the legal costs of the member of the public.

One such situation occurred when the Sunshine Coast Regional District accepted that it was responsible for the legal costs of a woman when it attempted to place a restrictive covenant on a building permit to be issued to her. She was only able to resolve this when she hired a lawyer and the Regional District accepted the lawyer’s claim that the Regional District could not attach this type of requirement to the issuance of a
building permit.

She complained that the Regional District was acting unjustly in refusing to compensate her for all of the legal expenses that she had incurred to resolve this matter. The Regional District had taken the approach that it was willing to share the costs associated with her expenses. Our investigation reviewed the basis for the Regional District’s offer to share the expenses that this woman had incurred. Although we accepted that this woman would have been responsible for paying for the building permit, we did not agree that the Regional District was acting fairly when it attempted to recover a penalty amount associated with this building permit that it had not attempted to recover until it accepted responsibility for sharing her legal expenses.

At our suggestion, the Regional District agreed to pay this woman’s legal costs and issued her a cheque for $1,075.42 for the full legal costs that she had incurred plus applicable interest. The Regional District also provided this woman with a written apology.

In her letter of appreciation, this woman observed that “your office is very necessary for those who dare to dispute government officials who make their own rules and ignore the current bylaws.”

http://www.ombudsman.bc.ca/investigations/case-summaries/local-government/181-legal-costs-paid

IMO