Asbestos Corporation: the U.S. law firms lose standing a day before the bar date

In sixteen months of CCAA proceedings, none of the thousands of people who say Asbestos Corporation Limited's asbestos made them ill has come before the Superior Court of Québec in person to oppose the company and its insurers. Justice Jean-François Émond set that down at the head of his reasons on September 9, 2026, and named who had come instead: "it is lawyers from the United States representing some of those Potential Claimants who have done so, intervening in their own name in the proceedings" [translation], per the Judgment on the Application to Strike Bennett Jones' Notices of Representation, Sept. 9, 2026, para. 3. By summer there were 17 of those firms, said to represent more than 115,000 potential claimants, and their Canadian counsel, Bennett Jones, acknowledged taking its instructions from the firms rather than from the claimants, per the Judgment of Sept. 9, 2026, para. 7.

The judgment came one day before the bar date for existing asbestos claims against the company, 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on September 10. By July 24 the monitor, Raymond Chabot Inc., had sent the bar date documents to 108,889 mailing addresses and received 320 proofs of claim, according to the Sixth Report of the Monitor, July 24, 2026, paras. 4.3, 5.2. The filing is personal by order: a proof of claim must be signed by the claimant, one signed by anyone else is void, and a proof of claim for a class or group is forbidden, per the Rectified Asbestos Claims Bar Date Order, Jan. 7, 2026, para. 29. Between August 18 and September 9, three courts in two countries ruled on the terms on which those claimants will be heard, and on who may speak for them.

A single forum in Thetford Mines

Until 1986 ACL ran open-pit chrysotile mines at Thetford Mines, and it has since been the subject of thousands of asbestos-related claims. It was the insurers who brought it into the CCAA. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London and four other London market insurers, defined as CLMI, applied with ACL's consent, describing a South Carolina court that in 2023 held ACL in contempt for refusing to produce Québec documents and witnesses and appointed a receiver to run its U.S. defence; they proposed a single Québec forum in which every asbestos claim would be reviewed under the court's supervision, per the Initial Application, May 5, 2025, paras. 1–7, 19–20. Raymond Chabot was appointed monitor in May 2025, and on October 30, 2025 the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recognized the CCAA proceeding as a foreign main proceeding, per the Sixth Report, July 24, 2026, paras. 2.1, 3.11.

The asbestos bar date order followed a contested hearing on December 11, 2025, at which seven U.S. law firms and a trustee, representing 1,600 people, asked for disclosure of ACL's records before any bar date and a proof of claim simplified on the model of U.S. asbestos trust intake forms. Justice Émond refused both, finding that the form, "despite its 30 pages, is a relatively straightforward and comprehensive procedure," and that the opposing parties "did not present any evidence to support their position and their fears," per the Rectified Asbestos Claims Bar Date Order, Jan. 7, 2026, paras. 4, 6, 15–16. The order also required any attorney for a known claimant to give the monitor that claimant's mailing address within 21 days of a request, on pain of contempt and of being barred, with the claimants it represents, from further submissions, per para. 28. The monitor's certificate of March 6, 2026 set the date six months out, and by May 31 the monitor had spent more than US$4.6 million, excluding professional fees, publicizing it, per the Sixth Report, July 24, 2026, paras. 5.2, 5.4.1, 6.14.

Leave refused in Québec City

On June 19, 2026 Justice Émond issued the asbestos claims review and adjudication order, under which the monitor will value each claim, less its valuation grid, which awaits a hearing on the challenge to the report of the monitor's expert, Dr. Stephanie Plancich. The National Service Industries trustee and U.S. firms sought leave to appeal, arguing that the order lets claims be settled without a creditor vote and prejudices vulnerable creditors, per the Judgment of the Court of Appeal of Québec, Aug. 18, 2026, paras. 5–9.

Justice Simon Ruel of the Court of Appeal heard the application on August 13 and dismissed it with costs five days later. The group of applicant firms, he noted, "has grown considerably since the judgment under review was rendered: it has reached 17" [translation], but article 351 of the Code of Civil Procedure gives the right of appeal only to a party to the first-instance judgment, so as to the added firms the application was irregularly brought, per the Court of Appeal judgment, Aug. 18, 2026, paras. 4, 21. On the vote he relied on the supervising judge's own words: "at the end of the process, it will be for them [the victims] to decide on the arrangement proposed to them, it being understood that the Court will have to rule on such an arrangement before CLMI or other interested third parties are released" [translation]. Justice Émond had called the concern premature and theoretical, and Justice Ruel would not treat it as significant to the practice, per para. 13.

The rest turns on delay, and on how few of the victims the applicants speak for. The claims concern more than 108,000 victims, "many of whom have been waiting for decades for a compensation mechanism to be put in place," while the applicants, when the June judgment was rendered, "represented only 248 victims" [translation]. A new hearing would hold up the claims by at least several months, and a claimant unhappy with an award has the appeal mechanism built into the order, per the Court of Appeal judgment, Aug. 18, 2026, paras. 14–16. The monitor filed a certified English translation in New York the next day, per the Foreign Representative's Tenth Status Report, Aug. 19, 2026, paras. 2–3.

Recognized in New York, with a list

The monitor had moved on July 8 for U.S. recognition of the bar date and claims adjudication orders, and the court confined the motion to the bar date orders. The objectors, the Asbestos Parties, are Jami Nimeroff, who succeeded Charles M. Forman as chapter 7 trustee of the National Service Industries estate on July 10, 2026, and individual claimants. After an evidentiary hearing on August 24, Judge Lisa G. Beckerman granted recognition on September 3. "The Court is aware that the CCAA Proceeding appears to be the first CCAA proceeding that involves asbestos claimants," she wrote, and many U.S. asbestos chapter 11 cases have no bar date, because claims go to trusts under a plan on which claimants vote, per the Decision Regarding Foreign Representative's Motion (ECF No. 220), Sept. 3, 2026, pp. 1–3.

That difference, she held, did not matter. Justice Émond had heard the monitor's testimony and the objections before ruling, the Asbestos Parties had not sought leave to appeal, claimants can file online, by email or by mail, and "while a longer period might be preferable, the six-month period does not seem unduly short such that it is prejudicial to the U.S. claimants." Nor was the order manifestly contrary to U.S. public policy under section 1506 of the Bankruptcy Code, per the Decision (ECF No. 220), Sept. 3, 2026, pp. 4–9.