Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Allegations centered on deceptive marketing practices by labeling identical solvents with different branding and price points.

• Plaintiff invoked consumer protection statutes, including the BPCPA, Sale of Goods Act, Competition Act, and others.

• Claims included breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and misrepresentation.

• The plaintiff failed to plead sufficient facts to establish a viable cause of action under section 4(1)(a) of the Class Proceedings Act.

• Court found no actionable misrepresentation or falsehood in the product labeling or marketing language.

• Certification as a class action was denied due to lack of a properly disclosed cause of action in the pleadings.

Facts of the case

The plaintiff, Maciej Siwocha, sought to certify a class action lawsuit against Recochem Inc. He alleged that Recochem marketed several types of solvent products under different brand names—such as Varsol, Solvable, and Recordosol—each claiming to offer varying quality and uses, despite all of them having the same chemical composition. The plaintiff contended that this practice misled consumers and allowed Recochem to charge different prices for what were, in essence, the same product.

The plaintiff claimed that Recochem’s conduct breached various laws, including the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (BPCPA), the Sale of Goods Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, and the Competition Act. The case was framed as a proposed national class action with similar statutory violations alleged under other provincial and federal consumer protection regimes.

Court’s analysis and findings

The key legal question was whether the plaintiff’s pleadings disclosed a valid cause of action, as required under section 4(1)(a) of the Class Proceedings Act to certify a class action. The Court, led by Justice Groves, examined the marketing language used on the different products and found that none of the descriptions were inherently false or misleading. Although the chemical composition was the same, the labels did not compare products against each other nor did they make explicit “good, better, best” claims.

The Court emphasized that marketing language such as “premium quality” or “professional grade” was subjective and not automatically actionable unless tied to a specific misrepresentation. There was also no evidence that Recochem had a legal obligation to disclose the identical nature of the products across different brands. As a result, the allegations of misrepresentation and deception were considered speculative.

The Court further noted the lack of a direct contractual relationship between the plaintiff and Recochem, since the plaintiff was an indirect purchaser who bought the products through third-party retailers. This undermined the breach of contract claims. Additionally, the pleadings did not adequately set out claims under various provincial consumer laws or under the Civil Code of Québec.

Outcome of the case

Justice Groves concluded that the plaintiff failed to satisfy the first requirement for class certification: the disclosure of a reasonable cause of action. As such, the application for certification was dismissed. The Court did not proceed to assess the remaining class action certification criteria under section 4(1)(b) to (e).

Despite finding no actionable legal wrongdoing, the Court expressed moral concern over Recochem’s marketing strategy, likening it to a scene from The Simpsons where different brands of beer all come from the same pipe. However, the Court stressed that clever but non-deceptive marketing was not necessarily unlawful.

Given the borderline nature of the case and the lack of a clear legal breach, the Court ordered that each party bear their own costs. The plaintiff was left with the option to reformulate and refile the case, but the current claim was deemed legally insufficient for certification as a class proceeding.