Green Impact Partners: the initial order that would not take effect until 11:59

The order was granted on February 4, 2026 and then told to wait. On National Bank of Canada's application, the Court of King's Bench of Alberta granted CCAA protection over eight companies in the Green Impact group and appointed Ernst & Young Inc. as monitor — and then stayed its own order, so that paragraphs 6 through 55 would not come into force until 11:59 p.m. Mountain time on February 17. There was one way to stop them coming into force at all: if the bank's counsel filed a certificate by 4:00 p.m. that day confirming the group's indebtedness had been repaid in full, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 1–3.

The debt was not repaid. At 11:59 p.m. on February 17, 2026, EY's appointment as monitor commenced, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, para. 4.

That thirteen-day suspension is the tell of the whole file. This was a lender's proceeding from the first paragraph, and it opened with an ultimatum rather than a filing.

A process that set its own clock

The bank filed for a comeback the next day, and on February 23 the Court granted an amended and restated initial order together with an order approving a sale and investment solicitation process, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 5–6.

The SISP that order approved had no fixed dates in it. It prescribed no commencement or bid deadlines for either phase; instead it left the Monitor to set them in the exercise of its reasonable business judgment. The Monitor then decided, with the selling agent, the debtors and the bank, to market only one part of the business — the Water Assets — and to consider what to do with everything else after seeing what that produced. It amended and restated the process accordingly, into two phases with expression-of-interest requirements and defined requirements for binding bids, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 25–27.

Both deadlines it set then moved. The expression-of-interest date was first April 30, 2026 and was amended with the bank's consent; the phase two bid deadline was first May 28, 2026 and was amended the same way. Twenty-five potential bidders signed non-disclosure agreements and were given the data room, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, para. 29.

Ten phase two bids came in: four for the business en bloc and six for specific Water Assets. The Monitor assessed them with the bank and identified Firefall as the successful bidder, on the view that its bid was the highest and best available transaction in the circumstances, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 28, 30.

What Firefall bought

Not the water assets. The company that holds them.

Green Impact Partners Inc. entered into an asset purchase agreement with Firefall for the sale of its shares in Green Impact Operating Corp. — the entity whose operations are limited to the Water Assets — against a deposit of 10% of the purchase price, applied at closing. The price itself is not on the public record: it is defined in the Monitor's Third Confidential Supplement, and the copy of the agreement attached to the public report is redacted, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 31–32.

The sale approval and vesting order was granted on July 21, 2026 — recorded as such in the order that followed it the next day, per Order (KERP and KERP Charge), July 22, 2026, para. 6. On July 22 the Court sealed the confidential supplement, directing the clerk to file it in a sealed envelope so that it forms no part of the public record, per Order (Stay Extension, Distribution and Restricted Court Access), July 22, 2026, paras. 5–6.

The bank gets paid, subject to a holdback

The group's primary secured creditor is the applicant. As at July 14, 2026 the indebtedness owing to National Bank stood at approximately $25,100,000, plus interest, fees and professional fees still accruing, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, paras. 59–60.

The Monitor's counsel reviewed the bank's security independently and opined — subject to the customary assumptions and qualifications — that the security documents are legal, valid, binding and enforceable, that the interests granted under them have been perfected so far as registration can perfect them, and that in Alberta and British Columbia they rank ahead of unsecured creditors and of any trustee in bankruptcy subsequently appointed, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, para. 61.

On that footing the July 22 order authorises the Monitor to distribute the remaining and residual funds available for distribution to National Bank, as and when it determines appropriate and subject to a holdback amount, per Order (Stay Extension, Distribution and Restricted Court Access), July 22, 2026, para. 3.

A retention plan paid after the lender

The same day the Court approved a key employee retention plan and a charge of $400,000 behind it. The plan's own summary is sealed — it sits as a confidential exhibit to the affidavit of Jesse Douglas sworn July 17, 2026 — but the Monitor's supplemental report describes how it pays, and the structure is worth noting, per Supplement to the Third Report of the Monitor, July 20, 2026, paras. 6–7 and Affidavit of Jesse Douglas, July 17, 2026, Confidential Exhibit "A".

There are up to two instalments. The first falls one business day after the secured indebtedness is repaid. The second, if it arises at all, comes on the completion of a transaction. An employee who has resigned or been terminated in the specified circumstances gets neither, per Supplement to the Third Report of the Monitor, July 20, 2026, paras. 7–8.

The plan was not assembled for the hearing. Preparation began around March 2026, Green Impact's board approved it around the same time, and the employees covered by it have known for months that approval would be sought — a chronology the Monitor sets out expressly, having also given particular consideration to the payment proposed for the chief financial officer, per Supplement to the Third Report of the Monitor, July 20, 2026, paras. 11–13.

The charge itself is carefully fenced. It attaches to the present and after-acquired assets of the companies but expressly not to the assets sold under the sale approval and vesting order, and it ranks behind both the administration charge and the directors' charge, per Order (KERP and KERP Charge), July 22, 2026, paras. 4, 6–7.

Why this is not the end of it

The stay was extended from July 31 to October 30, 2026, and the Monitor's reason for wanting the extra three months is the limit of what was sold, per Order (Stay Extension, Distribution and Restricted Court Access), July 22, 2026, para. 2.

The solicitation process was run for the Water Assets alone, and the transaction is confined to the shares of the one subsidiary whose operations are the Water Assets. Everything else the eight companies own is still there, unmarketed. The Monitor says it will need to review the remaining assets with the companies and decide whether to progress toward a plan of arrangement for the stakeholders who are left, or to liquidate or sell what remains, per Third Report of the Monitor, July 14, 2026, para. 54.

A lender applied, held its order over the borrower for thirteen days, ran a sale of the one division that would clear its loan, and is being paid out of the proceeds. The rest of the group is a question for October.