Steven J. Weisz

The applicant sought to recognize and enforce a default judgment and several ancillary orders, including injunctions, made by a Florida court against the respondents regarding stolen cryptocurrency.

The respondents, who had evaded service in the Florida class action, did not appear.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice validated service of the application and held that the Florida court properly assumed jurisdiction, the judgments were final, and no defences to enforcement applied.

The court ordered the recognition and enforcement of the Florida judgments, including the payment of the Canadian equivalent of US$8,888,788.76 and costs.

The Receiver brought a motion for an order approving an interim cash distribution of $78 million to the two institutional unitholders in Bridging SMA 2 LP.

The court found it appropriate to make an interim distribution but reduced the amount to $46 million to account for the potential impact of substantively consolidating the various Bridging Funds, an issue that had yet to be determined.

The Receiver brought an unopposed motion for a Claims and Unitholdings Identification Order and for approval of its activities as described in its 12th Report.

The court found the proposed order practical and reasonable to assist the Receiver with the distribution process.

The motion was granted and the Receiver's activities were approved.

The Receiver brought a motion to extend the appointment of limited partner advisory committees, approve its activities, and approve a process for appointing Representative Counsel for the Unitholders.

The Ad Hoc Committee of Retail Investors raised concerns about the independence of the proposed appointment process.

The court approved the Receiver's activities and the extension of the committees, but modified the Representative Counsel appointment process to include an independent third party to evaluate proposals and make a recommendation to the court.

The applicants, former directors of PACE Savings & Credit Union, sought a declaration that CUMIS General Insurance Company had a duty to defend them in an action brought by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) as administrator of PACE.

CUMIS denied coverage based on the 'Insured vs. Insured' exclusion in the Directors' and Officers' Liability Policy.

The court held that while the exclusion applied, the 'derivative action' exception restored coverage because the FSRA, acting as a 'person', brought the claim on behalf of the corporation.

The court also ruled that applicants facing fraud claims were entitled to independent counsel due to a conflict of interest, while those facing only negligence claims were not.

The applicant, Green Relief Inc., sought approval of a transaction for the sale of its assets to 2650064 Ontario Inc. in the course of a CCAA proceeding.

The transaction included a condition precedent releasing claims against current directors, legal counsel, the Monitor, and its counsel.

Certain founding shareholders opposed the release, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction to grant it prior to a plan of arrangement and that they wished to pursue claims for loss of chance.

The court approved the transaction and the release, finding the sale process was reasonable and the release was rationally connected to the restructuring, benefiting creditors by preventing the depletion of the estate through indemnity claims.

The court temporarily lifted the stay of proceedings to allow claims covered by tail insurance to be filed.

Her Majesty the Queen in right of Ontario sought to lift a stay on its $330 billion health care cost recovery action against three tobacco companies (JTI-Macdonald Corp., Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc.) and eleven co-defendants, which was imposed under CCAA proceedings.

Ontario proposed to temporarily stay the effects of any judgment.

The court dismissed the motion, emphasizing the need to preserve the status quo in CCAA proceedings to facilitate a global resolution of significant claims.

Allowing Ontario's action to proceed would alter the level playing field, distract from restructuring efforts, and impose significant costs, prejudicing other stakeholders.

The Bondfield Group, a major construction company, sought CCAA protection due to insolvency, over $1 billion in active contracts, and over 200 lawsuits.

The application was unopposed and resulted from extensive stakeholder negotiations.

The court granted an initial order for CCAA protection, including a stay of proceedings, approval of a tailored $8 million Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) facility funded by Zurich Insurance, an Administration Charge for professional fees, and a Directors' Charge for $3 million (excluding John Aquino).

The court emphasized the public interest in completing critical infrastructure projects and the preference for CCAA over receivership to preserve enterprise value.

The moving party sought the production of files held by a non-party law firm.

The responding party objected to producing a subset of the files relating to his corporation, claiming they were irrelevant and subject to lawyer-client privilege.

The Master found that the responding party's review of the files was insufficiently thorough and that the files likely contained relevant, non-privileged documents.

The Master ordered the responding party to disclose all documents in the remaining files in a supplementary affidavit of documents, properly categorizing them into privileged and non-privileged schedules.

The Estate of Frank Calderone brought a motion seeking leave to amend its crossclaim against Joseph Calderone to introduce new allegations of fraud and fraudulent concealment related to a family business syndicate (CBS).

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the new claims were statute-barred under the Limitations Act, 2002, as the Estate failed to exercise reasonable diligence to discover the claims by December 2011.

The court also addressed ancillary requests, granting partial production of documents from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, adjourning the request for documents from McMillan LLP, granting leave to examine non-party David Young (a lawyer), and ruling on various refusals from Joseph Calderone's examination for discovery.

The action was assigned to case management.

The moving party, Zayo Inc., previously had its motion dismissed.

The motion sought an order for the Monitor to pay Zayo $1,228,799.81 from the proceeds of the sale of the applicants' assets.

In this costs endorsement, Zayo argued that costs are not the norm in CCAA proceedings.

The court disagreed, finding this to be an exceptional case where the normal rule of costs should apply, as the real opponents (the secured lenders and the purchaser) were not insolvent.

The court awarded costs against Zayo, fixing them at $30,000 each for Primus and BMO, and $20,000 each for Birch and the Monitor.

Zayo Inc. brought a motion seeking an order for FTI Consulting Canada Inc., as Monitor for the Primus Entities, to pay Zayo $1,228,799.81 from asset sale proceeds.

This amount represented pre-CCAA filing arrears owed to Zayo under contracts assigned to Birch Communications Inc. Zayo argued the consent process for assignment was not transparent or fair, alleging it was misled into consenting without realizing it could have leveraged Section 11.3(4) of the CCAA to demand full payment of arrears.

The court dismissed the motion, finding the consent process fair and transparent, noting Zayo's sophistication and lack of due diligence.

The court also found that granting the order would cause prejudice to secured lenders and Birch, as it would require varying existing orders and disrupt a closed transaction.

The Ministry of the Environment appealed a CCAA judge's decision that environmental remediation orders issued against an insolvent company were subject to a stay of proceedings.

The insolvent company had abandoned a contaminated site after selling its other assets.

Applying the Supreme Court's decision in AbitibiBowater, the Court of Appeal found it was sufficiently certain that the Ministry would perform the remediation work itself, making the regulatory orders in substance a provable monetary claim in the insolvency.

The appeal was dismissed.

The applicants, comprising the Cinram Group, sought an Initial Order under the CCAA.

The court found that the applicants were debtor companies and insolvent, facing a looming liquidity crisis.

The court granted the Initial Order, which included a stay of proceedings extended to non-applicant subsidiaries, authorization to pay critical pre-filing obligations, and approval of various charges including a $15 million DIP financing charge, a $3.5 million administration charge, a $13 million directors' and officers' charge, and a $3 million KERP charge.

The court also authorized the foreign representative to seek recognition under Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

The applicants, Timminco Limited and Bécancour Silicon Inc., sought orders in their CCAA proceedings to suspend special payments to their pension plans, grant super priority to Administration and D&O Charges over provincial pension deemed trusts, approve Key Employee Retention Plans (KERPs), and seal the KERP details.

The unions opposed the super priority and suspension of pension payments, arguing it violated provincial pension legislation and fiduciary duties.

The court granted the motion, applying the doctrine of paramountcy to find that enforcing the provincial pension obligations would force the companies into bankruptcy and frustrate the CCAA restructuring.

The court also approved the KERPs and sealed the confidential supplement.

The applicants, Timminco Limited and Bécancour Silicon Inc., sought initial protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) due to severe liquidity issues and an inability to meet financial obligations.

The court found the applicants to be insolvent debtor companies and granted the initial CCAA order.

The court also extended the stay of proceedings to certain directors, officers, and specific partnership agreements, and approved an Administration Charge of $1 million and a Directors' and Officers' Charge of $400,000.

The respondents, having been largely successful on the main appeals concerning the interpretation of seizure and detention remedies under the Airport Transfer (Miscellaneous Matters) Act and the Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act, sought costs totaling over $631,000.

The court declined to award costs to any party.

The court reasoned that the proceedings raised novel issues of statutory interpretation that engaged the public interest, the respondents were not completely successful as their cross-appeals were dismissed, and the appellant airport authorities acted reasonably in bringing the appeals given the lack of established jurisprudential authority.

The appellant unions appealed an order dismissing their motion to vary an earlier order that appointed an interim receiver for Royal Oak Mines Inc. The original order explicitly directed the interim receiver not to make contributions to any employee pension plan without court authority.

The unions argued this was illegal as it undermined the collective agreement.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the interim receiver was not the employer and had no funds to pay the benefits, and that the court had jurisdiction under s. 47(2) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to make the order.

The court also rejected the unions' claim that the interim receiver was liable for termination pay under the Employment Standards Act.