{"id":5670,"date":"2020-01-22T07:04:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T12:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/?p=5670"},"modified":"2020-01-22T07:04:30","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T12:04:30","slug":"when-can-a-quebec-court-overlook-an-entire-agreement-clause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiegelryan.com\/en\/2020\/01\/22\/when-can-a-quebec-court-overlook-an-entire-agreement-clause\/","title":{"rendered":"When can a Quebec Court overlook an \u201centire agreement clause\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Invenergy Wind Canada v. \u00c9olectric Inc., 2019 QCCA 1073<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/j138b\">http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/j138b<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Invenergy produces and sells electricity generated by wind towers. \u00c9olectric finds suitable sites, maps them, obtains regulatory approvals and then collects royalties from Invenergy.<\/p>\n<p>The parties negotiated a complex contract, later amended. A dispute arose as to \u00c9olectric\u2019s entitlement to certain payments pertaining to electricity produced in additional sites.<\/p>\n<p>The contract contains an \u00ab&nbsp;entire agreement clause&nbsp;\u00bb and Invenergy is adamant that this prevents the court from reading into the contract additional terms having the effect of varying the expressed intent. &nbsp;The Court of Appeal reminds us here that the civil law is based on the primacy of the <em>negotium <\/em>(the contents of the contract) over the <em>instrumentum <\/em>(the material form of the contract).<\/p>\n<p>The rule, simply put, is that the true intent of the parties to a contract should have priority over their declared written intent, even in the presence of an \u00ab&nbsp;entire agreement clause&nbsp;\u00bb.<\/p>\n<p>The clause at issue reads as follows:<\/p>\n<p>\u00ab&nbsp;21.&nbsp;&nbsp; <u>No other agreements<\/u>.&nbsp; The Purchase Agreement and the \u00c9olectric Transaction Documents represent <u>the full and complete agreement<\/u> of the parties regarding the Project and subject matter hereof, <u>and except for the further documents and agreements expressly referenced<\/u> herein or therein or contemplated hereby, <u>there are no other agreements, oral or written, with respect to the Project and subject matter hereof<\/u>. This Purchase Agreement further supersedes the Memorandum of Understanding, dated May 5, 2003 between Seller and Purchaser solely in connection with the Project and subject matter hereof.&nbsp;\u00bb (underlining added)<\/p>\n<p>While such clauses are valid under Quebec law, they will be enforced only if the parties have expressed themselves clearly in the contract. If the <em>instrumentum <\/em>claiming to contain the parties\u2019 entire spectrum of their deal terms contains an ambiguity, then the Court may bypass the entire agreement clause in search of the true <em>negotium<\/em> through all admissible rules of evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The Court of Appeal then delves into the nature of the business relationship, the scope of the contract as amended, and concludes that all such evidence, otherwise inadmissible as a result of the entire agreement clause, indicates that the contract does not reflect the true <em>negotium<\/em>, the deal made.<\/p>\n<p>The Court of Appeal reaffirms that, on appeal, the interpretation of a contract by the trial judge containing ambiguous language is to be shown deference. Failing a gravely and manifestly deficient interpretation of a contract, the Court of Appeal will not interfere with the findings of the trial judge even if it would have come to an opposite yet similarly defensible interpretation. Parties to a contract often include an entire agreement clause precisely to avoid extrinsic evidence being relied upon to vary the terms.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>This article was originally published on Thelawyersdaily.ca<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Invenergy Wind Canada v. \u00c9olectric Inc., 2019 QCCA 1073 http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/j138b &nbsp; Invenergy produces and sells electricity generated by wind towers. \u00c9olectric finds suitable sites, maps them, obtains regulatory approvals and then collects royalties from Invenergy. The parties negotiated a complex contract, later amended. A dispute arose as to \u00c9olectric\u2019s entitlement to certain payments pertaining to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-litigation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When can a Quebec Court overlook an \u201centire agreement clause\u201d? - Spiegel Ryan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/en\/2020\/01\/22\/when-can-a-quebec-court-overlook-an-entire-agreement-clause\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When can a Quebec Court overlook an \u201centire agreement clause\u201d? - Spiegel Ryan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Invenergy Wind Canada v. \u00c9olectric Inc., 2019 QCCA 1073 http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/j138b &nbsp; Invenergy produces and sells electricity generated by wind towers. \u00c9olectric finds suitable sites, maps them, obtains regulatory approvals and then collects royalties from Invenergy. 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