Rami Debbas
Gerald Roiteg
Business Law
2 march 2013

Eric vs. Lola case
The supreme court of Canada decision of Eric and Lola case has not been released yet. Eric and Lola are unmarried Quebec couples that lived together and then split up, however they don’t have the rights as legally married couples. The parties had their real names changed to Eric and Lola under the protected family law for their 3 children privacy. Eric the billionaire businessman met his ex-girlfriend (Lola) in Brazil when she was 17 years old and he was 32 years old entrepreneur. The case of the parties had been making its way through the court system for years. It’s about a Quebec couples where never married and stayed together for 7 years with sharing a 3 children. When Lola and Eric separated, she sought spousal support but the Quebec civil code do not provide such provision for parties who are not legally married. Lola had been seeking 50 million dollar lump sum payments and also 56000 dollar a month from her formal spouse. Moreover Eric agreed to give generous child support money and rejected the alimony claim and the lump sum that she asked for.

The Quebec law of the common-law spouses is if an unmarried Quebec couple that lives together and then split up has not the same rights as a married couple but there is some provinces in Canada have the civil code marriage rights. Here in Quebec called it “De facto spouses” law; they give people freedom of choice of living together without having the responsibilities and rights that civil code of Quebec gives it to married partners regardless of the years that they stay together. However de facto spouses can have a contract of cohabitation that can give the rights of what the couples want and can cover daily life aspect, children and the family arrangements and also including provisions if breakup or death happen. As for the child support law, parents who where married, in civil union or in a de facto has same obligations and rights to their children.

The decision of the Supreme Court that the civil code of Quebec has handle the financial statement of couples who are not legally married. Province of Quebec has more than 31.5% of partners being in de facto relationship and the rest of Canada has average of 12.1%. Quebec stays the only province that doesn’t have de facto marriages. The dissection that Supreme Court does not have to give the common law partners the same right as the married spouses. However, there are some laws that treat them as a couple such as income tax, governing social assistance, and Quebec’s pension plan. The case has going through for many years in the court; they started Lola’s case to the Quebec superior court in 2009, a year after the Quebec court decided that the law discriminates against unmarried spouses and gave them a year to change it. After all the Quebec government said that they did a mistake and asked to take it to the