APPEAL ALLOWED
9354-9186 Québec inc. v. Callidus Capital Corp., 2020 SCC 10
Bankruptcy and insolvency Discretionary authority of supervising judge in proceedings under Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act Appellate review of decisions of supervising judge
On appeal from from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Dutil, Schrager and Dumas JJ.A.), 2019 QCCA 171, setting aside a decision of Michaud J., 2018 QCCS 1040.
The debtor companies filed a petition for the issuance of an initial order under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (“CCAA”) in November 2015. The petition succeeded, and the initial order was issued by a supervising judge, who became responsible for overseeing the proceedings. Since then, substantially all of the assets of the debtor companies have been liquidated, with the notable exception of retained claims for damages against the companies’ only secured creditor. In September 2017, the secured creditor proposed a plan of arrangement, which later failed to receive sufficient creditor support. In February 2018, the secured creditor proposed another, virtually identical, plan of arrangement. It also sought the supervising judge’s permission to vote on this new plan in the same class as the debtor companies’ unsecured creditors, on the basis that its security was worth nil. Around the same time, the debtor companies sought interim financing in the form of a proposed third party litigation funding agreement, which would permit them to pursue litigation of the retained claims. They also sought the approval of a related super‑priority litigation financing charge.
The supervising judge determined that the secured creditor should not be permitted to vote on the new plan because it was acting with an improper purpose. As a result, the new plan had no reasonable prospect of success and was not put to a creditors’ vote. The supervising judge allowed the debtor companies’ application, authorizing them to enter into a third party litigation funding agreement. On appeal by the secured creditor and certain of the unsecured creditors, the Court of Appeal set aside the supervising judge’s order, holding that he had erred in reaching the foregoing conclusions.
Held: The appeal should be allowed and the supervising judge’s order reinstated.
The supervising judge made no error in barring the secured creditor from voting or in authorizing the third party litigating funding agreement. A supervising judge has the discretion to bar a creditor from voting on a plan of arrangement where they determine that the creditor is acting for an improper purpose. A supervising judge can also approve third party litigation funding as interim financing, pursuant to s. 11.2 of the CCAA. The Court of Appeal was not justified in interfering with the supervising judge’s discretionary decisions in this regard, having failed to treat them with the appropriate degree of deference.
The CCAA is one of three principal insolvency statutes in Canada. It pursues an array of overarching remedial objectives that reflect the wide ranging and potentially catastrophic impacts insolvency can have. These objectives include: providing for timely, efficient and impartial resolution of a debtor’s insolvency; preserving and maximizing the value of a debtor’s assets; ensuring fair and equitable treatment of the claims against a debtor; protecting the public interest; and, in the context of a commercial insolvency, balancing the costs and benefits of restructuring or liquidating the company. The architecture of the CCAA leaves the case-specific assessment and balancing of these objectives to the supervising judge.
From beginning to end, each proceeding under the CCAA is overseen by a single supervising judge, who has broad discretion to make a variety of orders that respond to the circumstances of each case. The anchor of this discretionary authority is s. 11 of the CCAA, with empowers a judge to make any order that they consider appropriate in the circumstances. This discretionary authority is broad, but not boundless. It must be exercised in furtherance of the remedial objectives of the CCAA and with three baseline considerations in mind: (1) that the order sought is appropriate in the circumstances, and (2) that the applicant has been acting in good faith and (3) with due diligence. The due diligence consideration discourages parties from sitting on their rights and ensures that creditors do not strategically manoeuvre or position themselves to gain an advantage. A high degree of deference is owed to discretionary decisions made by judges supervising CCAA proceedings and, as such, appellate intervention will only be justified if the supervising judge erred in principle or exercised their discretion unreasonably.
A creditor can generally vote on a plan of arrangement or compromise that affects its rights, subject to any specific provisions of the CCAA that may restrict its voting rights, or a proper exercise of discretion by the supervising judge to constrain or bar the creditor’s right to vote. Given that the CCAA regime contemplates creditor participation in decision-making as an integral facet of the workout regime, the discretion to bar a creditor from voting should only be exercised where the circumstances demand such an outcome. Where a creditor is seeking to exercise its voting rights in a manner that frustrates, undermines, or runs counter to the remedial objectives of the CCAA ⸺ that is, acting for an improper purpose ⸺ s. 11 of the CCAA supplies the supervising judge with the discretion to bar that creditor from voting. This discretion parallels the similar discretion that exists under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and advances the basic fairness that permeates Canadian insolvency law and practice. Whether this discretion ought to be exercised in a particular case is a circumstance-specific inquiry that the supervising judge is best-positioned to undertake.
In the instant case, the supervising judge’s decision to bar the secured creditor from voting on the new plan discloses no error justifying appellate intervention. When he made this decision, the supervising judge was intimately familiar with these proceedings, having presided over them for over 2 years, received 15 reports from the monitor, and issued approximately 25 orders. He considered the whole of the circumstances and concluded that the secured creditor’s vote would serve an improper purpose. He was aware that the secured creditor had chosen not to value any of its claim as unsecured prior to the vote on the first plan and did not attempt to vote on that plan, which ultimately failed to receive the other creditors’ approval. Between the failure of the first plan and the proposal of the (essentially identical) new plan, none of the factual circumstances relating to the debtor companies’ financial or business affairs had materially changed. However, the secured creditor sought to value the entirety of its security at nil and, on that basis, sought leave to vote on the new plan as an unsecured creditor. If the secured creditor were permitted to vote in this way, the new plan would certainly have met the double majority threshold for approval under s. 6(1) of the CCAA. The inescapable inference was that the secured creditor was attempting to strategically value its security to acquire control over the outcome of the vote and thereby circumvent the creditor democracy the CCAA protects. The secured creditor’s course of action was also plainly contrary to the expectation that parties act with due diligence in an insolvency proceeding, which includes acting with due diligence in valuing their claims and security. The secured creditor was therefore properly barred from voting on the new plan.
Whether third party litigation funding should be approved as interim financing is a case-specific inquiry that should have regard to the text of s. 11.2 of the CCAA and the remedial objectives of the CCAA more generally. Interim financing is a flexible tool that may take on a range of forms. This is apparent from the wording of s. 11.2(1), which is broad and does not mandate any standard form or terms. At its core, interim financing enables the preservation and realization of the value of a debtor’s assets. In some circumstances, like the instant case, litigation funding furthers this basic purpose. Third party litigation funding agreements may therefore be approved as interim financing in CCAA proceedings when the supervising judge determines that doing so would be fair and appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances and the objectives of the Act. This requires consideration of the specific factors set out in s. 11.2(4) of the CCAA . These factors need not be mechanically applied or individually reviewed by the supervising judge, as not all of them will be significant in every case, nor are they exhaustive. Additionally, in order for a third party litigation funding agreement to be approved as interim financing, the agreement must not contain terms that effectively convert it into a plan of arrangement.
In the instant case, there is no basis upon which to interfere with the supervising judge’s exercise of his discretion to approve the litigation funding agreement as interim financing. A review of the supervising judge’s reasons as a whole, combined with a recognition of his manifest experience with the debtor companies’ CCAA proceedings, leads to the conclusion that the factors listed in s. 11.2(4) concern matters that could not have escaped his attention and due consideration. It is apparent that he was focussed on the fairness at stake to all parties, the specific objectives of the CCAA, and the particular circumstances of this case when he approved the litigation funding agreement as interim financing. Further, the litigation funding agreement is not a plan of arrangement because it does not propose any compromise of the creditors’ rights. The fact that the creditors may walk away with more or less money at the end of the day does not change the nature or existence of their rights to access the funds generated from the debtor companies’ assets, nor can it be said to compromise those rights. Finally, the litigation financing charge does not convert the litigation funding agreement into a plan of arrangement. Holding otherwise would effectively extinguish the supervising judge’s authority to approve these charges without a creditors’ vote, which is expressly provided for in s. 11.2 of the CCAA.
Citation: 9354-9186 Québec inc. v. Callidus Capital Corp., 2020 SCC 10
Docket: 38594
Joint Reasons Wagner C.J. and Moldaver J. (Abella, Karakatsanis, Côté, for Judgment: Rowe and Kasirer JJ. concurring)
https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18365/index.do