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REGIONAL WRAP-UP to 12 years less a day behind bars — the longest jail term in Canadian history for securities fraud — and issued a $255,000 fine concluding the case "justly quali- fies as the unprecedented scandal in the country's judicial and financial annals." "In terms of documentation, it was also one of my biggest cases yet," Downs, of Downs Lepage, tells Canadian Lawyer from his Old Montreal office. The hall- way leading to it is lined with 60 legal- size boxes holding approximately 10,000 documents related to the Norbourg case. "If I didn't read them all, my bril- liant young associate Tristan Desjardins did," Downs recalls, noting the toughest challenge was compressing so much in- formation for trial. There was also the matter of reducing the number of potential witnesses to call, from more than 80 to 20 by the time the trial started in May 2007. "Compared to a criminal case, where you can spend 50 days in court for something that hap- pened in five minutes, we had 50 days for something that occurred over five years," says the 44-year-old son of Quebec Su- perior Court Justice Kevin Downs. What further complicated the case was that Lacroix, who claimed he couldn't afford a lawyer and was denied legal aid, represented himself — some- thing Downs hadn't anticipated and says weighed down the trial. But he credits the AMF's own legal team for helping make his daunting task easier. It was Lise Girard, a former lawyer Eric Downs took on the role of prosecutor. with Pouliot L'Écuyer of Quebec City, who the AMF went to in August 2005 to prepare 18 raids by various police forces and to write up the charges once the in- vestigation was completed. Girard, since appointed the AMF's litigation director, accompanied Downs and Desjardins every step of the way. Having whittled down 1,500 boxes of evidence to the 60 used in the trial, she had intimate knowl- edge of the case. Her boss, Nathalie Drouin, the execu- tive director of enforcement and legal affairs whom Downs describes as "the soul behind the AMF," is overseeing the regulator's mission to crack down on il- legal insider trading and other market misdeeds by people like Lacroix. Drouin says, from the AMF in Quebec City, her team has grown from 40 inspec- tors and investigators when the body was created four years ago to nearly 90, while the number of lawyers under Girard's di- rection has tripled to 18 during that time. Although the Norbourg case was ex- tremely high-profile, Drouin and Girard note there are currently about 300 active cases underway. They say 1,000 charges were laid in the past year, up from only 25 three years ago. From the moment Downs took on the Norbourg case until the end of 2007, he billed the AMF for 3,500 hours. That doesn't include work done so far this year with Lacroix attempting to chal- lenge both his conviction and sentence. On March 11, Quebec Superior Court Justice Réjean Paul tossed out a series of arguments made by Lacroix to back an appeal for a new trial. After serving as his own lawyer in court for more than a year, Lacroix then renewed a bid to challenge his sentence at a scheduled June hearing — this time represented by Clemente Monterosso of Monterosso Giroux, the lawyer who has served in the past for alleged Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto. Downs may not be finished with La- croix yet. — MIKE KING mking@videotron.ca MATLoW CoULD BE REMoVED FRoM BENCH A Canadian Judicial Council inquiry committee found On- tario Superior Court Justice Ted Matlow guilty of miscon- duct in late May. It concluded there are grounds to recom- mend he be removed from the bench. "The inquiry committee concludes that Justice Matlow's conduct is so manifestly and to- tally contrary to the impartiality, integrity, and independence of the judiciary that the confidence of individuals appearing before the judge, or of the public in its justice system, have been under- mined, rendering the judge incapable of performing the duties of his judicial office," says the 65-page committee report (online at www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca/english/conduct_en.asp?selMenu=conduct_ inq_matlow_en.asp). Matlow's lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo, of Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish LLP, says the judge will be asking the Fed- eral Court of Canada to review the findings of the panel. Mat- low, a 68-year-old judge with 27 years of experience, will also file a written response to the CJC and is scheduled to appear before the council to comment on it July 21. After that, the council will make its recommendation to Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson on whether Matlow should be removed from office after hear- ing the judge's response. A federal judge can only be removed from office through a joint resolution of Parliament. However, Cavalluzzo says he will request the CJC defer taking further action in its disciplinary process while his client's Feder- al Court action is ongoing. At press time, the CJC said it would not respond before the application is filed in Federal Court. www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JULY 2008 11