Employee terminations and downsizing are features of most restructurings. While employees can typically assert a claim in the insolvency process, parallel claims and complaints with labour relations regulators and tribunals are relatively common. In a recent judgment, the Superior Court of Québec clarified that all employee claims can be extinguished through a plan of arrangement under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), including those filed before regulators and tribunals.

On April 1, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an application for leave to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal of Québec (QCA) in Séquestre de Media5 Corporation, 2020 QCCA 943, which had put an end to a long-lasting debate on the availability of ‘national’ receivers to Québec secured creditors. The decision of the QCA is now final.

On July 20, 2020, the Court of Appeal of Québec (the QCA) released its reasons in Séquestre de Media5 Corporation,^[1] putting an end to a long-lasting debate on the availability of national receivers to Québec secured creditors.

On May 21, 2020, the Québec Court of Appeal (QCA) released its reasons in Arrangement relatif à 9323-7055 Québec inc. (Aquadis International Inc.)^[1](the Aquadis case).

Aereo, Inc. will be permitted to auction off its live television streaming technology to the highest bidder in accordance with a December 24 order, signed by a New York bankruptcy court judge, approving a deal between Aereo and the broadcast television networks on the sale process.  

In April 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal rendered a unanimous judgment in Re Indalex Limited which ordered that the amount the debtor was required to contribute towards its pension plan wind up deficiency be paid in higher priority to repayments to its DIP lender. This judgment was a surprise to the legal community. Leave to appeal has since been granted by the Supreme Court of Canada. In November 2011, groups of White Birch employees and retirees (referred to below as employees) filed motions seeking the application of the legal findings of Indalex to White Birch.

Voicing concern about the Rural Utilities Service’s (RUS) oversight of federal loans for rural broadband network projects, six members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to RUS Administrator and former FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to request information on a $267 million loan granted by the RUS to Open Range Communications, a regional broadband service provider that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month. The RUS funds approved for Open Range during the administration of President George W.

FairPoint Communications’ 2008 purchase of New England landlines from Verizon Communications is the subject of a $2 billion fraudulent transfer lawsuit, filed late last week by a litigation trust formed by FairPoint creditors, who claim that the $2.3 billion acquisition forced FairPoint into bankruptcy just 18 months later. North Carolina-based FairPoint, which emerged from bankruptcy in January but continues to struggle financially, provides wireline telephony and Internet services to nearly two million customers in 18 states.

A consortium uniting Apple, Inc. and Microsoft with other top players in the software, electronics and wireless handset industries outplayed Google in a bankruptcy court auction for Nortel’s patent portfolio, posting a winning offer of $4.5 billion for the trove of 6,000 patents that cover fourth-generation wireless, data networking, Internet, and semiconductor technologies.

Google stepped closer to acquiring Nortel’s portfolio of 6,000 telecommunications, wireless and Internet patents on Monday as courts in the U.S. and Canada approved the web search giant’s “stalking horse” offer of $900 million for those patents. Announced on April 4, Google’s offer effectively constitutes the opening bid in an auction that will be decided at a joint hearing of the U.S. and Canadian courts on June 30. The auction also opens the latest chapter in the ongoing bankruptcy process for Nortel.