The appellant operated a small grey market business to buy iPhone 4 units from Apple's Canadian retail channels and resell them in Hong Kong, where they were not yet available. Friends and family members (the "buyers") would purchase one or two phones each, for which the appellant fully reimbursed them. The Minister denied the appellant's input tax credit claim for the HST incurred by the buyers on the basis that they were not its agents (and also on the basis of inadequate documentation).
Bocock J found that the buyers were not the appellant's agents as they did not have the authority to bind it. Apple's terms of sale prohibited buying phones for resale - that is, Apple would never have entered into the sales contracts directly with the appellant. Bocock J stated (at para. 17):
[A] principal cannot appoint an agent to engage in a contractual entreaty [sic] into which the principal has no legal capacity or authority to enter: 1524994 Ontario Ltd. v. Canada, 2007 FCA 74 at paragraph 18.