On July 30, 2021 the Supreme Court released its judgement in York University v. Access Copyright a mere two months after the May 21, 2021 hearing. The Court dismissed the appeal from Access Copyright (AC) regarding "mandatory" tariffs, thereby upholding the Federal Court of Appeal ruling that "an approved tariff is not binding against a user who does not accept a licence" (para 76).

The Court dismissed York's fair dealing appeal since the Court's finding that the interim tariff was not enforceable against York meant that "there is no live dispute between the parties" (para 83). However, the Court said it did not endorse the fair dealing analyses of the lower courts and chose to provide comments "to correct some aspects of the reasoning from the courts under review which, respectfully, depart from this Court’s jurisprudence" (para 88).