ADCS Legal Team

Our Constitutional Litigator:


In April of 2014 ADCS announced its intention to proceed with litigation against the Government of Canada, challenging its right to enact the U.S. FATCA law on Canadian soil. As a result of your support, we are delivering on that promise.

We have now retained Vancouver B.C. constitutional litigator 
Mr. Joseph Arvay and his team at Farris Vaughan Wills & Murphy to represent us in the lawsuit.

Mr. Arvay previously provided the detailed opinion that forms the framework for our legal arguments. He has been counsel on landmark cases in the Supreme Court of Canada — a court he has appeared in dozens of times. In each of the years from 2010 to 2013 Mr. Arvay was named by Canadian Lawyer Magazine as one of the top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada.


Some quotes from Mr. Arvay’s peers:

In a case involving collective bargaining rights, Peter Hogg, one of Canada’s experts in constitutional law, said that he “was astonished when that case came out. I doubt that anyone but Joe could have persuaded the court that they had been getting it consistently wrong for twenty years.”
Hogg also says “If Joe loses a case, which must happen from time to time, I think everyone will assume that there was just no way to win it.”





Retired BC Supreme Court justice Ian Pitfield has laughingly complained that “Joe is like a hard-fighting trout on the line. He has to be reeled in sometimes, in order for his enthusiasm to be kept under control.”

Recently Mr. Arvay received the Robert S. Litvack Award for his “exceptional public interest work and outstanding lifetime achievement” from the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism of Montreal’s McGill University. His acceptance lecture can be viewed here.


Our ADCS Legal Counsel:


Our Board Co-Chair and Legal Advisor, Toronto lawyer
Mr. John Richardson will interface with Mr. Arvay on behalf of ADCS-ADSC.

Mr. Richardson’s 2014 submissions on FATCA and taxation of U.S. persons abroad to: the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Government of New Zealand and the Government of Canada can be found 
here.

Many of you will know Mr. Richardson for his information sessions 
‘Solving the Problems of U.S. Citizenship’ which have been held throughout Canada and Europe.