Sex class action lawsuit against Montreal billionaire Robert Miller to proceed

MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit against Montreal billionaire Robert Miller, who is accused of paying minors for sex, as well as several alleged accomplices.

Justice Catherine Piché said in a decision Tuesday that the lawsuit brought by three plaintiffs against Miller, his former company — Future Electronics — and three former executives could go ahead.

In her 76-page ruling, Piché wrote that the allegations made at the authorization stage were sufficiently “concrete, specific and tangible” to support the position that harm suffered by the plaintiffs resulted directly from faults by Miller and the other co-accused. The threshold will be higher during the trial.

Piché described Miller’s alleged actions as “extremely serious acts” against girls between the ages of 11 and 17.

The proposed lawsuit identifies the class as anyone under the age of 18 who was paid by Miller for sex, or who was a victim of sexual exploitation by him or by any others determined by the court.

The former executives named in the lawsuit are Raymond Poulet, Sam Joseph Abrams and Helmut Lippmann, who are alleged to have facilitated Miller’s encounters with the girls. Lawyers for the three men and for the company told the court in November that their clients should not be part of the lawsuit because they were not involved in any of the sex allegations brought forth by the plaintiffs.

The class action has been amended a number of times since it was filed in February 2023, and it doesn’t specify how much the plaintiffs — who are not named — are seeking in damages.

Miller is alleged to have identified himself as an American businessman named Bob Adams who travelled frequently to Montreal, and the encounters are alleged to have taken place in Montreal hotels and in a private home in Westmount, Que.

It’s the second time that a Quebec judge has been asked to consider a class action involving high-profile allegations of sexual assault, and lawyers for the defendants had argued the procedure was not the right way to go when the case didn’t involve someone in a position of authority.

But Piché said the Miller case was different from that of Quebec impresario Gilbert Rozon, founder of Just for Laughs. The Quebec Court of Appeal in 2020 rejected a bid for a class action against Rozon, saying the plaintiffs had to bring individual lawsuits.

In the Miller case, Piché wrote, there are enough similarities described by the plaintiffs to warrant a class action.

The alleged modus operandi was always the same: high school students were recruited to have sex with Miller in exchange for money and gifts as part of what the lawsuit says was a network to sexually abuse girls and young women.

Lawyer Jeff Orenstein told the court that 51 women have come forward to his firm, but he says the actual number of alleged victims could be as high as 100 because many of the women say they recruited others to have sex with the billionaire.

One of the plaintiffs alleges she was 11 years old when the encounters began. The lawsuit describes sexual acts that took place from the late 1970s until 2016.

Miller also faces civil lawsuits filed by four individual complainants, while a fifth lawsuit was rejected and that decision is being appealed.

The 81-year-old business magnate and founder of the Montreal-based global electronics company Future Electronics has repeatedly denied the allegations. The billionaire, who is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease, also faces 24 criminal charges including sexual assault, sexual interference and enticing a person to commit prostitution — charges he denies.

Miller was initially investigated by Montreal police in 2008 and 2009 but the allegations were deemed unfounded by the Crown. The case was reopened in the aftermath of a Radio-Canada investigative report in February 2023.

Miller subsequently stepped down as CEO of Future Electronics and sold the company to a Taiwanese firm for US$3.8 billion in a deal completed in April 2024.

In November, Miller’s lawyer, Karim Renno, said his client intended to defend himself against the allegations. He had nothing further to add on Wednesday, and a spokesperson for Future Electronics did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Mr. Miller’s position is that he never had sexual relations with anyone that was under 18,” Renno said in November. “That’s the conclusion the police came to in 2009, before they reopened their investigation in 2023.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 15, 2025.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press