At Forrester & Company, we are particularly experienced in obtaining Mareva Orders and other interim injunctive relief for the preservation of assets pending litigation. We have established protocols to immediately notify Canadian financial institutions of these orders once they are obtained, and register them on title against the interest of real property assets of each defendant.
In addition, we have also acted on behalf of defendants to set aside injunctions and other preservation orders that were improperly obtained.
Tonggui Xie and others v. Terry Lai and others
Forrester & Company was retained by a Vancouver law firm to act as agents for the Plaintiff solely in respect of obtaining a Mareva Injunction. The application by Forrester and Company on behalf of the Plaintiff was successful, with the Mareva Injuction freezing upwards of $2 million of the Defendants’ assets. In this complex litigation matter, Plaintiffs alleged that the one of the Defendants fraudulently misappropriated investment funds belonging to them made pursuant to a joint venture agreement. The Plaintiffs further alleged that Defendant sold the investment property which was the subject of the investment and concealed the sale and disbursement of the sale proceeds from the Plaintiffs in efforts to avoid repayment of the investment funds owing to the Plaintiffs. Forrester and Company successfully argued that the Defendants’ conduct amounted to both:
- a) a strong prima facie case of fraudulent misappropriation of the Plaintiffs’ funds; and
- b) evidence of the risk of further dissipation of assets by the Defendant Mr. Lai.
Pixhug v. Steeves and others
In this instance, Forrester and Company was retained by Defendants against whom a without notice Mareva Injuction had been made. Forrester and Company set aside the Mareva Injunction. This complex commercial litigation involved allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation against an individual who led an international team of software developers.
Read the Reasons for Judgment of the Court.
The following is an excerpt from furthers Reasons for Judgment of the Court (here) regarding costs which summarizes the complexity of the work performed by Forrester and Company at the application to set aside the Mareva Order (emphasis added):
48 For the following reasons, I find that the Set Aside hearing involved matters of more than ordinary difficulty. This was a four day, hard fought application where neither party made concessions on any material point in dispute. The issue of whether the plaintiff had established a strong prima facie case of fraud was complex insofar as it required a close analysis of a large body of evidence relating to Pixhug’s software development project and the work performed by the defendants. As I noted at para. 11 of my reasons for judgment, the defendants filed 18 affidavits; some with hundreds of pages of exhibits attached. The materials filed by the plaintiff on the original ex parte application and in response to the defendants’ motion to set aside the injunction were equally voluminous.
49 Defence counsel were required to marshal and master a large body of evidence in a relatively short period of time obtained from clients and witnesses who in many cases resided in New Brunswick, the United States, or other jurisdictions outside this province. Counsel also had to respond to the plaintiff’s allegation of a multi-phased scheme of fraud perpetrated by Mr. Steeves. They also investigated the plaintiff’s financial circumstances in order to determine whether Pixhug had any means of satisfying its undertaking as to damages. The expeditious and effective cross-examination of the plaintiff’s expert was pivotal to the outcome of the defendants’ application to set aside the Mareva injunction. Here, the extent of the effort required for fact gathering and proof was well beyond the ordinary – particularly where counsel were working under significant time pressures.
0805652 B.C. Ltd and others v. D&E Investments and others
We are counsel for the plaintiffs in this matter, who are investors in a purported commercial real estate development project in Alberta. The land is held as a bare trust, which is administered by the plaintiffs on behalf of the defendants as shareholders. In breach of a bare trust agreement, certain of the defendants mortgaged the development property, and the plaintiffs allege that the defendants fraudulently used the funds from the mortgage for their own benefit.
In a without notice application before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the plaintiffs applied for and obtained a Mareva Order, restraining the defendants from dealing with assets up to the amount of $1.65 million. The litigation remains before the Court.
Read the Reasons for the Judgment of the Court
Attorney General of British Columbia v. Malik
Forrester & Company represents one of the defendants in the civil fraud proceedings commenced by the Province of British Columbia in respect of expenses claimed by one of the defendants in the Air India trial. A Mareva Order has been made in that proceeding, and Mr. Forrester was successful in his submission that secured debts of his client should be discharged upon sale of a property owned by certain of the other defendants.
Read the Reasons for Judgment of the Court
D. N. v. L. B.
Counsel for Canada Post and a franchisee in respect of a successful application to set aside an injunction made without notice. The injunction was for the seizure of Canada Post equipment, along with the entirety of the franchisee’s business equipment and inventory. Mr. Forrester argued to set aside the injunction on the grounds that the respondent, when obtaining the injunction without notice to the applicants, failed to make full and frank disclosure of all material facts in issue.
The Court found that the respondent had failed to disclose material facts and set aside the injunction, the effect of which was the release of inventory and equipment belonging to Canada Post and the franchisee.
Huang v. Li
Counsel for the plaintiff in a fraud proceeding where the plaintiff alleges he was defrauded of over $1 million USD. The funds were known to have been placed in California California bank account, and the defendant allegedly had fled to Vancouver. Mr. Forrester applied on an urgent basis for a worldwide Mareva Order to freeze the funds. The Supreme Court of British Columbia Mareva Order was obtained the first business day after Forrester & Company was retained, long before a similar order could be obtained in California. While the litigation in both California and British Columbia is ongoing, it appears that the majority of the allegedly defrauded funds in the California bank account were frozen pursuant to the British Columbia Mareva Order.
This case is particularly interesting and unusual because it appears that Forrester & Company correctly predicted that the California bank would cooperate with a Mareva Order made by the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The British Columbia Mareva Order appears to have been an effective interim “stop-gap” measure, to preserve the funds and “buy time” for a similar order to be made in California (by a court in that jurisdiction which could legally require compliance by a California bank.
Ecology and Environment Inc. v. Finavera Wind Energy Inc.
Forrester & Company successfully applied to set aside a garnishing order against the defendant for unpaid invoices in the sum of $861,000. The garnishing order froze the sum of $621,000 in the bank account of the defendant, a TSX Venture Exchange company. The funds amounted to the entirety of the defendant’s operating funds. Mr. Forrester applied on an urgent basis to set aside the garnishing order. The primary grounds for the application were technical: the garnishing order was void because the $861,000 claimed by the defendant exceeded an agreed to $700,000 “cap” that the plaintiff could invoice the plaintiff. While the “cap” amount in fact exceeded the amount ultimately garnished, Mr. Forrester successfully argued that the order should be void because the amount garnishable exceeded the amount claimable pursuant to the agreed upon cap. The Court agreed with that submission, voided the garnishing order, and ordered the entire sum of $621,000 to be released to the defendant.
Liang v. Qian et. al. and Liang v. Q. Sogood et. al.
Forrester & Company acts for the plaintiff in Supreme Court of British Columbia proceedings where the plaintiff, a Chinese resident, alleges that he was defrauded of $5 million by the defendants in respect of a development project in the City of Hefei, Anhui Province, People’s Republic of China. Mr. Forrester and Forrester & Company paralegal/translator Salina Fan traveled to Hefei to obtain evidence in support of a Mareva Order against the defendant Jun Qian. The Mareva Order and various other disclosure applications by Mr. Forrester ultimately led to the interim restraint of millions of dollars in real property assets in British Columbia. The litigation is ongoing.
Yang v. Lee
Forrester & Company applied on behalf of the plaintiff, a Chinese resident, and obtained a Mareva Order, where the defendant had defrauded the plaintiff of approximately $600,000. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant had forged letters by the Toronto Stock Exchange, a Canadian chartered bank and a Vancouver lawyer in a complex fraud scheme to fraudulently obtain funds from the plaintiff for a sham application to list a mining company on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Mareva Order ultimately led to the recovery of the majority of the allegedly defrauded funds.
In the course of enforcing the Mareva Order, the defendant applied to access funds that the plaintiff alleged were part proceeds of fraud, from which to pay legal fees. Forrester & Company opposed the application on behalf of the plaintiff.
Read the Reasons for Judgment here
Fraser Valley Disposal Ltd. v. JPC and others
Forrester & Company applied on behalf of the plaintiff to obtain a Mareva Order against a former employee who allegedly defrauded the plaintiff, a waste transfer station. The Mareva Order was granted, leading to the seizure of assets belonging to two of the defendants, and ultimately the settlement of the litigation as against those defendants.
Le Soleil Hospitality v. Louie and others
Counsel for the defendants in respect of issues related to a Mareva Order against the defendants, in highly complex and lengthy commercial litigation. Mr. Forrester has numerous appearances both at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of British Columbia