By Amira Benjamin, Shaaranki Kulenthirarasa, Jasmine Makar and Negin Khodayari

The Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) filed a $20 million lawsuit against former TMSU president Ali Yousaf and 16 other former and current affiliates of the union, on Friday. This lawsuit will be the largest in the union’s history.

The lawsuit includes claims of breach of confidentiality, election interference and “financial gain.” 

The update was shared to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students in an email blast Saturday night as part of an ongoing independent investigation into the TMSU over the past several months, as previously reported by The Eyeopener. 

The email states that “Ali Yousaf, a former TMSU President with no official role in the Union since 2021, has repeatedly conspired to manipulate the student union’s electoral process to ensure his chosen candidates were elected.”

The statement of claim obtained by The Eye also names former TMSU executives such as former TMSU president Nikole Dan, former president and vice-president student life Nadir Janjua, and former vice-president of operations Muhammad Awais, among others.

Koby Biya, who ran in the 2025 TMSU fall by-election, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Biya served as vice-president of student life in the 2024-25 academic term. His 2025 slate, Students Leading Tomorrow, received 744 points in the 2025 fall by-election.

According to the TMSU email, the lawsuit alleges these defendants “engaged in civil conspiracy, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract, among other serious claims.” 

Interim co-executive director Scott Miller Berry said in the press release that the lawsuit is about “defending the integrity of TMSU’s democratic process” by targeting “bad actors at the heart of this ongoing corruption.”

The lawsuit follows over a decade of alleged corruption, financial mismanagement and fraud. Previous reports of misconduct include the ‘credit card scandal’ of 2019 totalling to an alleged $250,000 in mismanaged funds, and various corrupted elections including the Spring Election 2023, the Spring Election 2025 and the Fall By-Election 2025  

At the 2025 semi-annual general meeting, independent investigator MNP also reported financial irregularities of $1.4 million to 11 vendors in recent years, as previously reported by The Eye.

One of these vendors, ImagineXperience, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. According to the TMSU email, ImagineXperience and “three other related businesses received over $1.175 million from TMSU during the 2024-25 academic year.”

The statement of claim alleges that several defendants, including Dan, Janjua and Biya, have been “unjustly enriched” by ImagineXperience and were compensated for their roles within TMSU as executives, board members or employees. ImagineXperience has “benefitted directly from overpayments” such as TMSU payments that were “fraudulent or improper and dishonestly obtained” according to the statement of claim.

There are also four anonymous defendants listed in the statement of claim as Jay Doe 1,2,3 and 4 which, according to page 63, are connected to the “TMSU Saviour” emails allegedly breaching the confidentiality of information belonging to TMSU. 

“TMSU Saviour” is an alias given to one or more anonymous writers of a series of emails sent to large groups of the TMU student body and media—including The Eye—detailing incriminating allegations against the TMSU regarding elections misconduct and financial mismanagement. This series of emails began in December 2024. 

Information obtained and allegedly breached by these individuals include “passport numbers, permanent residency numbers, diverse license numbers, home addresses ” of current and former TMSU members. 

Details regarding the private hiring process of the TMSU were also obtained by these individuals. “The Saviour Defendants knew that this information was confidential and wilfully disseminated for their own purpose despite this knowledge,” page 64 of the statement of claims reads. 

TMSU filed a $70,000 lawsuit against “TMSU Saviour” according to the claim. 

Among many incidents, the statement of claim also alleges that defendant Hafsa Iqbal was behind the over $100,000 purchase of low-quality, defective menstrual massage and heating pads for an inflated price for a ‘giveaway’ in late 2024.

TMSU has previously filed lawsuits against three of its former executives in 2023 for its general election, but the parties had reached a settlement, as previously reported by The Eye.

This is a developing story and will be updated as new details emerge.