Fredrick Schumann

Fredrick focuses on helping people, businesses, and other entities who are facing regulatory investigations and prosecutions. These processes are complex, high-stakes, and often attract significant public attention. In navigating them, Fredrick applies legal skill and practical ingenuity to get his clients the best possible results.

Fredrick has defended public officials charged with criminal offences and ethical contraventions. He has acted for private corporations and public entities facing prosecution for workplace safety offences or competition offences, or class actions litigation. He provides meticulous, creative, and vigorous advocacy that is geared to the unique crisis that each client finds themselves in.

Fredrick is a sought-after speaker and instructor, through the Advocates’ Society, Osgoode Professional Development, and Ontario Bar Association. He has particular interest and experience on the law of evidence and trial advocacy skills, having taught at the Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshop as faculty since 2019.

Fredrick earned an Honours BA in English and mathematics at the University of Toronto, and his JD (Honours) also at the University of Toronto, where he won the Silver Medal and the Dean’s Key. He then worked as a law clerk to the Honourable Ian Binnie of the Supreme Court of Canada, and then was selected as a Fox Scholar and spent a year working with commercial barristers in London, England.

 

Counsel to a multi-national pharmaceutical company in a class action alleging systemic price-fixing and market allocation in the generic prescription drug industry.

Regulatory counsel for Laurentian University of Sudbury in its CCAA insolvency, 2022 ONSC 109, 2022 ONSC 429, and 2023 ONCA 299.

Dhillon v Brampton (City), 2021 ONSC 4165: acting for a Brampton City Councillor in a judicial review application challenging findings of Brampton’s Integrity Commissioner and the resulting actions of City Council.

Cicada 137 LLC v Medjedovic, 2022 ONSC 2765, 2022 ONSC 468, 2022 ONSC 369, 2021 ONSC 8473: acting for the representative plaintiffs in a proposed class action arising from the misappropriation through hacking of approximately US$16 million in cryptocurrency from a decentralized finance platform.

AG Ontario and $164,300 in Currency, 2019 ONSC 2024: motion to exclude unconstitutionally obtained evidence in a Civil Remedies Act application for the forfeiture of alleged proceeds of crime. One of the first reported cases in Ontario on this issue.

Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Essex County v Corporation of the City of Windsor, 2019 ONCA 344, 2017 ONCA 555, 2015 ONCA 572: member of the defence team in a class action alleging that lottery licence fees were actually unconstitutional taxes.

R v Levesque: defence counsel for JP Levesque, Chief of Police in Thunder Bay, Ontario, against charges of breach of trust and obstruction of justice. At trial, Chief Levesque was acquitted on both counts: 2018 ONSC 603.

R v 7506406 Canada Inc (Ornge), 2017 ONCJ 726 and 2017 ONCJ 750: defence counsel for Ornge, the Ontario air ambulance corporation, in a trial of charges under the Canada Labour Code arising from a four-fatality helicopter crash. Trial in spring 2017. Ornge was acquitted on all counts.

Criminal appeals: R v Morris, 2023 ONCA 816; R v Rule, 2023 ONCA 31; R v Lewis, 2022 ONCA 641; R v Navarathinam, 2022 ONCA 377; R v Gracie, 2021 ONCA 707; Caja Paraguay de Jubilaciones y Pensiones v Duscio, 2019 ONCA 803; R v Du, 2015 ONCA 715