I-Way Group: EY counts 283 fleet assets unaccounted for, and an auction of 41

The order that put the I-Way group into receivership was made on December 18, 2025, but Ernst & Young Inc.'s appointment under it took effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 9, 2026. For the weeks in between the order gave the seven companies three things to do, starting at once: hand EY a list of all their trucks, trailers and other equipment, with make, model, year and vehicle identification number; take all commercially reasonable steps to complete deliveries in progress; and, by the effective date at the latest, return all of it to one of the four properties the group's holding companies own and confirm in writing to EY that they had done so, per the Receivership Order, Dec. 18, 2025, paras. 2, 4.

Management's list reached EY before the effective date. It counted 518 assets at 48 last-known locations in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, of which 440 were leased, 51 owned and 27 disposed of before the receivership. EY's First Report, dated June 30, 2026, sets out the order's three duties and then the count. The receiver visited the last-known locations of 501 of the assets and located 191 that were on the list or bore the group's logos or other identifiers. EY understands that lessors had engaged bailiffs, before the effective date, to collect at least 44. The other 283, on the receiver's subtraction, "remain unaccounted for," and 24 of them appear from management's listing to have been owned by the group and not subject to any lease claim, per the First Report of the Receiver, June 30, 2026, paras. 32–37. EY says it has asked after the missing assets on multiple occasions. Management "has advised that it is unable to confirm the location of these assets, which the Receiver considers concerning in the circumstances," the First Report, para. 46 says.

A refinancing, and then an argument about audits

The group's account of itself is in the affidavit Balwant Samra swore on November 28, 2025 to oppose the receivership. The business has operated since approximately 2012, running a trucking fleet and warehousing and yard services for customers across Canada and into the United States. From 2012 until 2025, he deposed, "neither I-Way Transport nor the related real estate companies had missed a payment to a lender," per the Affidavit of Balwant Samra, Nov. 28, 2025, paras. 3–4, 19. The First Report names Mr. Samra as the sole director and/or officer of each debtor: three operating companies, Wings Freightway Inc., I-Way Transport Inc. and I-Way Logistics Inc., and four holding companies that each own one property. Those are 51 Worcester Road in Toronto, a 51,658-square-foot industrial building on 3.99 acres; 70 Nicolas Avenue in Winnipeg; and two Calgary sites, 13950 52 Street NE and 4905 98 Avenue SE, per the First Report, paras. 11–16.

The refinancing that paid out the group's earlier mortgage lenders, Royal Bank of Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada, was made under commitment letters dated March 21, 2024. Canadian Western Bank and National Bank of Canada amalgamated on March 1, 2025 and continue as one bank under the National Bank name, and the filings treat references to either as the same lender. The facilities included operating lines of $3.5 million, $3.5 million and $8.0 million to the operating companies and demand mortgage loans of $17.25 million on Worcester Road, $7.0 million on the southeast Calgary site and $2.75 million on Winnipeg, all cross-guaranteed and cross-defaulted. As at June 17, 2025 the debtors owed the bank approximately $43.2 million, per the First Report, paras. 6, 18–25 and the Samra Affidavit, para. 8.

RBC and BDC, Mr. Samra says, had lent for years on review-engagement statements from the group's long-standing accountant. Then, in or about October 2024, senior bank personnel told him "for the first time that the Bank now required audited financial statements for the August 31, 2024, fiscal year and that such audit had to be performed by a 'top-tier' national firm." A mid-sized firm he consulted advised that such an audit would be "very difficult, if not impossible," because audit-level controls had not been in place from the start of the year. In or about June 2025 the bank froze the operating line, and the group, he says, "received no meaningful advance notice or warning," per the Samra Affidavit, paras. 5, 10–14, 20. He also cites "a deteriorating freight market resulting from the Trump trade war," and sums up: "The problems identified by the Bank arose largely after the Bank changed the reporting requirements mid-stream, asked us to abandon our existing accountant, and then froze the operating line," per the Samra Affidavit, paras. 13, 48.

The bank's reply affidavit, sworn by Aleksandar Nakevski of its special loans unit, quotes the commitment letters as requiring an "audited/unqualified full finance statement package yearly within 120 after year end completed by an accountant/firm acceptable to the Bank." It says the lines were frozen on June 28, 2025, after the June 17 demands and notices of intention to enforce security and after the cure periods under the BIA had lapsed, and that the bank had tried since May 2025 to have CBRE Limited appraise the properties but the debtors never facilitated the site visits, per the Reply Affidavit of Aleksandar Nakevski, Dec. 9, 2025, paras. 5, 13, 20. On June 28 the bank also applied a $2,993,929.23 term deposit to the debt, as a June 27 letter from the debtors' counsel had contemplated. From about August 21, 2025 the group missed scheduled loan payments, with arrears of approximately $650,000, per the Factum of the Applicant, Dec. 15, 2025, paras. 27–29, 34.

The group's answer was a buyer. An agreement of purchase and sale dated November 13, 2025 with SimConnect Freight Management, in trust, offered $18,000,000 for the four properties and associated business assets. When the bank said it could not judge the price without appraisals, the same purchaser group offered $19,000,000 for all or substantially all of the group's assets, conditional on the discharge of the bank's security, mutual releases and the dismissal or consensual resolution of the application, per the Supplementary Affidavit of Balwant Samra, Dec. 9, 2025, paras. 3, 6, 12–14. The group's accountants, Hawley & Chatwal, estimated the bank's net proceeds from a receiver-run liquidation of its real property security at about $14.64 million. Mr. Samra also objected to EY, which had been the bank's financial advisor: "there is a risk that EY might be seen, fairly or unfairly, as aligned with the Bank rather than as a fully independent court officer," per the Samra Affidavit, paras. 41–42, 50. The bank's reply called the Hawley & Chatwal report undated, unclear about who prepared it and without an explanation of its methodology, and said it is common for a bank's financial advisor to be appointed a court officer afterward and that the engagement letter the debtors consented to provided for EY to consent to act as receiver if the bank decided proceedings were needed, per the Nakevski Reply Affidavit, paras. 18, 23–24.

Justice Cavanagh did not accept that the bank lacked clean hands. "The Bank is relying on its contractual rights to receive financial reporting information. The loans are demand loans," he wrote, and "The Bank is under no obligation to accept the $19 million offer, which would leave it with a substantial shortfall." Among his eight reasons for finding a receivership just and convenient was that the bank "has lost faith and confidence in the Debtors' management by reason of their refusal to provide EY with access to their premises, books and records." On EY: "EY has consented to act as receiver and I accept that it should be appointed," per the Endorsement of Cavanagh J., Dec. 18, 2025, paras. 26–28.