Crystallex: eighty-eight per cent, and what the unsealed record shows

Almost no insolvency ever asks its shareholders to file a claim. Crystallex is asking.

A CCAA older than most of the lawyers in it

Crystallex International Corporation has been under CCAA protection since December 2011, on the initial order of Justice Newbould, with Ernst & Young Inc. as monitor throughout. On the same day it filed here it commenced a Chapter 15 proceeding in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, and on January 20, 2012 that court recognised the Canadian proceeding as the foreign main proceeding, per Forty-Seventh Report of the Monitor, paras. 1–2.

The reason it has lasted fourteen years is that the company's only real asset is a lawsuit. To fund the CCAA and to pursue an arbitration claim against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela over mine sites it alleged were expropriated, Crystallex borrowed from Tenor Special Situation Fund I, LLC — later Luxembourg Investment Company 31 S.à r.l. — under a senior secured credit agreement of April 23, 2012, approved by the court that April. The facility started at US$36 million. Outstanding principal now stands at $75,733,333, per Forty-Seventh Report, para. 3 and Compendium of the Applicant, May 27, 2026, Tab 1.

It worked. On April 4, 2016 an arbitral tribunal constituted under the Additional Facility of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes awarded Crystallex US$1.202 billion in damages against Venezuela, plus interest at six-month average US dollar LIBOR plus 1%, compounded annually, from April 13, 2008, plus post-judgment interest, per Forty-Seventh Report, para. 4.

Since then the company has run what the monitor describes as a two-track approach, "concurrently pursuing enforcement of the Award while remaining open to the possibility of achieving a negotiated resolution with Venezuela". Enforcement is where the money finally appeared: on November 25, 2025 the Delaware Court approved the US$5.89 billion winning Amber Bid in the Sale Process, per Forty-Seventh Report, paras. 9–10.

The monitor's caution about timing is worth reading exactly as written: "based on the current timetable, distributions will not be possible until 2027, at the earliest", per Forty-Seventh Report, para. 10.

The claims process that invites equity

On May 12, 2026, at 330 University Avenue, Madam Justice Conway granted a Supplemental Claims Procedure Order on Crystallex's motion for an order approving procedures for resolving all remaining claims in the proceeding. Counsel appeared for Crystallex, the independent director, Messrs. Fung and Oppenheimer, the monitor, the DIP lender, the trustee and the Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee — and Mr. Colin Murdoch appeared on his own behalf, per Supplemental Claims Procedure Order, May 12, 2026.

It covers five categories: claims relating to the 9.375% unsecured notes due December 23, 2011; certain "Marker Claims" filed by the Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee and the trustee; post-filing claims against the company or its current or former directors and officers, including claims for interest accrued since the filing date; claims by holders of the company's common shares; and claims against directors and officers under section 5.1(2) of the CCAA, meaning those resting on contractual rights or on wrongful or oppressive conduct, per Supplemental Claims Procedure Order FAQ, June 19, 2026, item 1.

The deadline is 5:00 p.m. Toronto time on July 13, 2026 — sixty days after the order — and the consequence of missing it is absolute: anyone who does not file "shall be barred from asserting or enforcing any Supplemental Claim against Crystallex or its Officers and/or Directors", per SCPO FAQ, June 19, 2026, item 2 and SCPO Timetable, May 29, 2026.

Shareholders are invited but not conscripted. Any shareholder may assert a claim and must attach proof of ownership if they do; nobody has to file merely to establish that they hold shares. The FAQ adds a caution that says something about how many people have been writing in: "the Monitor does not oversee the shareholder register for Crystallex" — questions about holdings go to your broker, per SCPO FAQ, June 19, 2026, item 3.

Notice went out through the machinery you would use if you meant to reach retail holders: to every claimant who had filed a general claim within three business days; published on the monitor's website and in the national editions of the Globe and Mail and the National Post within seven business days; and mailed to all shareholders and noteholders of record, routed through the transfer agent TMX to brokers, per SCPO Timetable, May 29, 2026 and SCPO FAQ, June 19, 2026, item 4.

Which is why the record had to be opened

You cannot ask a shareholder to decide whether to file a claim against a company whose financial architecture is sealed. So paragraph 4 of the same order required the company to file and publish, within fifteen days, a disclosure compendium of unsealed documents — expressly including the DIP credit agreement, the DIP loan amount, the CVR amounts payable to the DIP lender, the waterfall and the standstill order — followed within fifteen business days by a statement of receipts and disbursements, per SCPO Timetable, May 29, 2026.

The compendium was filed on May 27, 2026 in seven parts, and it is a complete paper history of the loan: the original agreement and nineteen successive amendments running from May 2012 to April 2025, an amended and restated grid note, a summary of DIP lender additional compensation, and at Tab 23 a document called simply Waterfall, per Compendium of the Applicant, May 27, 2026, index at Tabs 1–23.

The unredactions followed. A 2013 motion record was released in unredacted form on June 26, and on July 1, 2026 the docket received thirty-two confidential reports of the monitor — the eleventh through the forty-seventh, with gaps — all unredacted, per Forty-Seventh Report of the Monitor.

The waterfall

Exhibit F to the credit agreement is titled "Order of Application of Arbitration Proceeds", and it is the answer to the only question a shareholder actually has. When Crystallex receives arbitration proceeds it must calculate the distribution, submit the calculation to the lender and the monitor for approval, and — if they refuse or disagree — submit it to the CCAA court. Then it pays, in descending order, per Compendium of the Applicant, May 27, 2026, Exhibit F, "Order of Application of Arbitration Proceeds":

1. First, accrued unpaid post-filing expenses, in accordance with the budget. 2. Second, taxes payable or withholdable on the settlement, judgment or collection, as determined by an independent international accounting firm acceptable to both the company and the lender. 3. Third, into a principal cash collateral account up to the outstanding principal of the loan, and then to the lender. 4. Fourth, directly to the lender, unpaid accrued interest plus unpaid expenses and indemnity amounts. 5. Fifth, an amount equal to all proven and allowed unsecured claims — including pre-filing unsecured claims, which may include post-filing interest, and everything payable under the standstill order — or a lesser amount under a CCAA plan.