Business owners who pay legal fees to obtain a Judgment are often worried that they will be defeated by debtors who will somehow manage to avoid paying the Judgment. This type of concern is definitely something that needs to be factored in, when evaluating: do we sue or do we write this off ?
This type of evaluation should not be done without consulting a Business Lawyer who is experienced in the variety of strategies available to pursue debtors that many General Litigators are not familiar with. I am that type of experienced Business Lawyer.
In earlier Blogs I’ve discussed using the Oppression Remedy in either the Ontario Business Corporations Act or the Canadian Business Corporations Act on behalf of a creditor to successfully enforce a Judgment against the officers and directors of a corporation as well as new corporations that take over the business of the corporation a creditor has a Judgment against.
Another strategy I have used for many years, dating all the way back to my second year as a lawyer, is attacking transfers of assets by debtors as “Fraudulent Conveyances”. In one of the matters I acted on (Warsh v. Fink, [1998] O.J. No. 3908) the debtor consented a judgment in favour of a family member. I convinced the Judge that the judgment was only consented to in order to prevent my client’s claim from being enforced. This case used a combination of my “Nancy Drew” skills following a document trail as well as using an established legal principle in a new way.
As debtors come up with new and creative ways to try to defeat judgments, it’s important that your lawyer come up with new and creative arguments to shut down those attempts. We’re good at meeting the challenge of difficult debtors and we’re happy to discuss you Business Litigation matter with you if your current lawyer is not meeting that challenge.
Inga B. Andriessen JD