This cost ruling arises from an approval of a class proceedings settlement as against two of the Defendants. The Defendants argued that costs should not be awarded as against them because the Alberta Rules of Court do not permit an award of costs against objectors.

The Court agreed with the Applicant Plaintiff, however, in finding that Rule 10.32 applies only to an unsuccessful representative plaintiff, which the Defendants were not. Further, the Court noted that, in speaking only to costs against unsuccessful representative plaintiffs, Rule 10.32 does not preclude a costs award against objectors.

In applying Rules 10.29 and 10.32, the Court found no reason to depart from the general principle that the Applicant, being the successful party in the Approval Application, was entitled to its costs against the Defendants as the unsuccessful parties.

In quantifying costs, the Court noted that Rule 10.31(3)(b) allows the Court to order payment of costs equal to a multiple of an amount set out in any column of Schedule C. The Court noted that the application for the approval of the settlement would not be characterized as extraordinarily complex; however, the value of the settlement of at least $45 million, significantly exceeds the threshold for Column 5. As a result, the Court awarded costs in accordance with Column 5 of Schedule C with a multiplier of three.

The Court found that no approval of the resulting Order by the Respondents was required in accordance with Rule 9.4(2)(c).