Registrants sometimes fall out with each other. Occasionally, the registrants try to engage the regulator in the dispute. Regulators often try to avoid becoming involved. Every now and then that is not possible.
In Ahmad v Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, 2025 ONSC 2897 (CanLII), several engineers left Mr. Ahmad’s company to create a competing engineering firm. Mr. Ahmad was found to have deceptively created emails purporting to be from one of his departed colleagues and also from another professional engineer demeaning his departed colleagues (e.g., “snakes”, “white lies”, “betraying”). He was then found to have sent a third email to a mutual client accusing his departed colleagues of cheating his firm. The discipline panel imposed a three-month suspension, a reprimand, remediation, publication, and $30,000 in costs.
Mr. Ahmad, while acknowledging that he had created an account in the name of one of his departed colleagues, asserted that the deceptive emails were sent by a “hacker”. The panel was satisfied by clear and credible evidence that the emails had been sent by Mr. Ahmad. On appeal, the Court found that the panel had not reversed the burden of proof in concluding Mr. Ahmad had not, on a balance of probabilities, shown that the hacking had taken place. It was not sufficient for Mr. Ahmad to demonstrate that the email account could have been hacked. The Court also held that it was acceptable for the panel to draw an adverse inference from the fact that Mr. Ahmad failed to disclose the “header” of a disputed email to Mr. Ahmad’s own expert and to the regulator to enable a proper analysis.
The Court also declined to find that there had been excessive delay despite it taking over five years from the date of the complaint to the conclusion of the hearing. While there had been some delay, prejudice had not been established. Even if there had been prejudice, terminating the proceeding would tend to undermine the confidence of the public in effective professional regulation. The Court also said:
With respect, the time required to conclude this matter below was driven, in significant part, by tactical choices made by the Appellants about their defence of the case. The Appellants were entitled to make these choices, but they cannot now be heard to complain about the time required to deal with the case as occasioned by their tactical choices.
In terms of sanction, the Court found that there were too few decisions of a similar nature to establish a “range” from which the sanction departed. The Court also found that the panel had considered the context of the conflict between Mr. Ahmad and his ex-colleagues. In any event, “Standards of professionalism are not relaxed because of stress or conflict.” The costs awarded by the panel were not “plainly wrong” for a 16-day hearing even though Mr. Ahmad had succeeded on some of the issues.
Regulators can, and in some cases, should become involved in disputes between registrants where the conduct is clearly unprofessional.