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In an annual round up of Lexpert’s top 10 business decisions, Aquino v. Bondfield Construction Co., 2024 SCC 31 was featured as one of the most significant judicial rulings affecting the business community in 2024-2025.
Canada
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In an annual round up of Lexpert‘s top 10 business
decisions, Aquino v. Bondfield Construction Co., 2024 SCC
31 was featured as one of the most significant judicial
rulings affecting the business community in 2024-2025.
Torys partner Jeremy Opolsky, who acted as lead counsel in
this case to the respondent KSV Restructuring Inc., said the ruling
“is going to make it easier for insolvent companies to collect
on behalf of their creditors from corporate insiders who
defraud.”
In Aquino, the Supreme Court of Canada “clarified
corporate attribution in insolvency-related recovery and its
interaction with s. 96 and limitations analysis,” which has
directs impacts and implications for trustees, monitors, and
creditors, the Lexpert article says.
Read: Did I do that? SCC considers corporate
attribution doctrine in bankruptcy and insolvency
context
Aquino is now the leading precedent on the doctrine of
corporate attribution and the “transfer at undervalue”
provisions of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
“The reason why we have a corporate attribution or
corporate identification doctrine is that corporations don’t
have a mind of their own,” Jeremy told Lexpert.
“They act through people. They think through people.”
The core inquiry, he explained, is: “What does a company
know? What does it think? What does it mean? What does it
intend?”
The starting point for these considerations is not a “rigid
test, but instead, you have to look at why you’re asking the
question in the first place,” Jeremy said.
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