Sabre Inc. v. International Air Transport Association, 2011 ONSC 206 (Can LII)

Sabre Inc. v. International Air Transport Association, 2011 ONSC 206 (Can LII) On January 11, 2011, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) released its reasons for judgment in Sabre Inc. v. International Air Transport Association (IATA). In a major victory for IATA, the Court dismissed Sabre Inc.'s claim for a permanent world wide injunction against the sale of IATA's PaxIS products. PaxIS is an airline industry business intelligence product based in part on ticketing data that IATA collects and processes through its billing and settlement plans (BSPs). This data is transmitted to IATA by global distribution system providers, such as Sabre, that assist travel agencies in the issuance of tickets for their airline principals. In 2006, Sabre filed a lawsuit against IATA alleging breach of confidence by IATA with respect to its use of the ticketing data transmitted by Sabre in IATA's PaxIS products. In its decision, following a trial in the fall of 2010, the Court found that IATA acted lawfully in developing the PaxIS products based on data from its BSPs. The Court also rejected Sabre's arguments that IATA owed Sabre a duty in confidence to use BSP data solely for settlement purposes and not for commercial products such as PaxIS. On February 9, 2011, Sabre gave notice that it was appealing the decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal. On November 30, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed Sabre's appeal and awarded legal costs in favour of IATA.  Fasken Martineau acted as counsel to IATA in these proceedings with a team consisting of Robert Harrison, Paul Monahan and Emmeline Morse, with research support provided by Robin Roddey.