ONxpress: the claims officer the order forgot to protect

ONxpress Operations Inc. was owned by two shareholders: Deutsche Bahn International Operations GmbH and Aecon O&M, a division of Aecon Construction Group Inc.

By special resolution effective January 1, 2026 they approved its liquidation and dissolution under **s. 211(3) of the *Canada Business Corporations Act***, ratified the engagement of GlassRatner Restructuring Inc. as dissolution advisor and liquidator, and contemplated an application to continue the liquidation under court supervision, per Third Report of the Liquidator, May 22, 2026, para. 1.

That is a solvent, voluntary wind-up — the shareholders deciding to close a company down in an orderly way. What made it a court proceeding is that not everyone with a claim against it was ready to stop.

A liquidation, not an insolvency

It is worth being clear about the statute, because the CBCA liquidation is much less familiar than the CCAA or the BIA and the differences matter.

Under s. 211(8) the court may order that the liquidation be continued under its supervision. Under s. 217 it may appoint Inspectors. And the order sought here contained the feature that makes any of this recognisable to an insolvency practitioner: a direction that no proceeding or enforcement process be commenced or continued against the company or the liquidator, or affecting its assets, except with the liquidator's consent or leave of the court, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 3(a).

The application was made on January 5, 2026, returnable January 27, together with a claims procedure order establishing a process for the solicitation, determination and resolution of claims against the company and its current and former directors and officers.

And it asked, specifically, that a proceeding before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario — file number 2024-55448-I — be stayed and suspended pending further order.

The court did not simply grant it

At the initial hearing on January 27, Justice Conway requested further submissions, including in respect of the scope of the stay of proceedings, and continued the hearing to January 30, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 5.

That pause is the origin of everything that follows.

Staying a human rights application is not the same as staying a debt collection action. A complainant before the HRTO is pursuing a statutory remedy in a specialist tribunal with its own expertise, procedure and remedial powers. Sweeping that into a corporate claims process run by an accounting firm converts a discrimination complaint into a number to be proved, adjudicated by people whose training is in valuing claims rather than in human rights law.

The liquidator's answer, produced in the three days between hearings, was to build the expertise into the process:

the inclusion of a Claims Officer to adjudicate disputed claims was added to the proposed draft Claims Procedure Order after the Initial Hearing to address concerns raised by the Court with respect to Ms. Williams having a party with subject matter expertise to adjudicate the HRTO Claim in the Claims Process if the relief staying the HRTO Claim was granted.

Per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 20.

And it found a specific person for the job. Andrew Diamond is a mediator and arbitrator with more than sixteen years' experience mediating public and private sector disputes — and was an adjudicator with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for ten years, from 2008 to 2018, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 21.

He agreed to accept the appointment if ordered, the draft was amended before the adjourned hearing, and on January 30 the court granted both the Liquidation Order and the Claims Procedure Order.

That is a genuinely good piece of process design. The complainant loses her forum but not the kind of decision-maker that forum would have given her.

What the tight timeline cost

Then the problem this report is about:

In amending the proposed Claims Procedure Order under the tight timeline, standard protections granted by the Court in favour of the Claims Officer were not included in the Order.

Per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 22.

The claims officer role was invented over a weekend to solve a fairness problem, and the boilerplate that normally accompanies such an appointment did not travel with it. Andrew Diamond's engagement letter, dated March 3, 2026 and received after the order was granted, requires the liquidator to seek protections for him and for ADR Chambers, where he practises.

The liquidator's case for granting them sets out what a claims officer actually does, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, paras. 23–25:

The mandate requires independent review and adjudication of disputed claims with a potential value, on the face of the claims, in excess of $70 million. In discharging it he will make binding determinations that may be adverse to one or more claimants, some of whom may challenge those determinations or "may attempt to pursue collateral proceedings against the Claims Officer personally or ADR Chambers".

And then the characterisation that carries the argument:

The Claims Officer is acting at the direction of this Court and in furtherance of a process designed to achieve an orderly, efficient and equitable distribution of OOI's assets. In that capacity, the Claims Officer occupies a quasi-judicial function and should not bear personal financial risk arising from the good faith exercise of the powers and discretions conferred upon him.

The liquidator adds the answer to the obvious objection: claimants are not prejudiced, because they retain the right to appeal the claims officer's determinations under the Claims Procedure Order.

There is a broader point here for anyone drafting a claims procedure. A claims officer is a private individual exercising a public function, without the statutory immunity a judge or a tribunal member has. He decides against people, some of whom are unrepresented and losing a great deal, and the only thing standing between him and a lawsuit is a paragraph in an order. If that paragraph is omitted, the appointment is unattractive — and the pool of people willing to take these mandates is not large.

The claim that followed

The other half of the liquidator's motion concerns a claim issued the day before the initial hearing.

Oycelyn Williams commenced a civil action in the Ontario Superior Court on January 26, 2026 against ONxpress Transportation Partner, ONxpress Operations Inc., DBIO, Aecon Group Inc. and AR Consulting. The liquidator seeks an order confirming that the entirety of that claim is stayed under the Liquidation Order and falls to be determined under the Claims Procedure Order, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, paras. 11(b), 27.

The word doing the work is "entirety". A liquidation order stays proceedings against the company. A claim naming the company alongside its shareholders, an affiliate and a consultant raises the question whether the stay reaches the defendants who are not in liquidation — and if not, whether an action can proceed against them while the company against which the allegations are principally made cannot be sued.

Separately, Ms. Williams brought her own motion on April 6, 2026 under Rule 59.06 to vary the Liquidation Order by removing the reference to the HRTO proceeding from paragraph 6. Justice Conway dismissed that motion on May 4, 2026, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, paras. 8, 10.

Splitting the contested from the uncontested

The procedural handling in the last section of the report is worth noting, because it is a sensible way to deal with an opposing party who is unrepresented and unavailable.

The liquidator proposed hearing its motion together with the Williams motion on May 4; she objected, and it was agreed the liquidator's motion would be scheduled separately. Counsel then emailed her repeatedly to agree a timetable, book a chambers attendance, or confirm whether she took a position, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, paras. 15–17.

Her responses: she was not available for a chambers attendance until after the third week of July, preferably after August 5. She does not consent to the position that the entirety of the civil claim is stayed. And she did not respond to the question, put on May 10, of whether she took a position on the claims officer relief.

So the liquidator narrowed its own motion:

Given Ms. Williams' known objection to the relief the Liquidator is seeking in respect of the Civil Claim, the Liquidator is only seeking to have the Court deal with the Liquidator's Motion relating to protections for the Claims Officer to be heard on the May 28, 2026 return date.

Per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 18.

That is the right call. The contested question — the scope of the stay over a claim naming five defendants — needs a hearing on a date the responding party can attend. The uncontested one — whether the person the court asked for should be protected while doing the job the court gave him — should not wait until August because of it.

The wind-up itself is unremarkable: two large shareholders closing an operating company by resolution. What has taken four months of court time is the single claimant whose complaint was live when they did.