Steven Wittels

In a CCAA proceeding, the court considered supplementary written submissions regarding the appropriateness of differential consideration offered to unsecured creditors in the proposed Plan.

The court accepted the applicants' submission that the fairness of the differential consideration, which involves providing shares to Term Loan Lenders and cash to General Unsecured Creditors, should be determined at the Sanction Hearing rather than at the Meetings Order stage, given the low threshold for a Meetings Order and the presence of conflicting expert reports.

The Applicants sought an Authorization Order and Meetings Order under the CCAA.

The primary issues in dispute concerned the voting rights and classification of Litigation Claimants, which included uncertified U.S. class actions, a certified Ontario class action, and Texas mass tort claims.

The court held that the Litigation Claimants are creditors entitled to vote, but restricted them to one vote per action to prevent them from overriding other stakeholders on numerosity grounds.

The court also ordered summary proceedings to value their claims rather than accepting the Applicants' proposal to value them at $1.

Finally, the court declined to place the Term Loan Lenders in a separate class from other unsecured creditors, finding sufficient commonality of legal interests.

In the context of a complex CCAA restructuring, the applicants sought approval for several motions, including a second Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP), an extension of the stay of proceedings, an extension of the DIP financing facility, and two corporate transactions involving the wind-up of subsidiaries.

US class action plaintiffs opposed the KERP and DIP extension, arguing they would deplete the estate.

The court approved all requests, finding the KERP and DIP extension necessary to maximize creditor recovery and advance a restructuring plan.

The court also used its broad jurisdiction under s. 11 of the CCAA to approve a corporate dissolution that technically violated the solvency requirements of the CBCA, as the transaction benefited the estate and did not prejudice stakeholders.