Stableview: the 31 get past the bar date, and Grant Thornton answers

On September 15, Regional Senior Justice C. MacLeod dismissed Grant Thornton Limited's motion to quash a motion by 31 proposed plaintiffs, former unitholders of the Stableview funds, for leave to sue it over its handling of the Voxtur shares it held as receiver. What reached the receiver by the January 5, 2026 deadline was a detailed notice of motion and a draft notice of action; the investor affidavits and the expert evidence in the record now "were not prepared before the January 5 deadline." "In my view, there was substantial compliance with the intent of the consent order," the endorsement says. The motion of six unitholders who missed the deadline altogether is deferred to the hearing of the main motion, per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 12–13, 16, 21.

Grant Thornton answered on October 30. Its Seventh Report sets out four central allegations it says the unitholders advance: that it failed to liquidate the Voxtur shares and deal prudently with a standstill agreement, failed to obtain the financial and legal advice it needed, failed to keep unitholders informed, and that they suffered significant damages as a result. "Each of these allegations is without merit," the report says, and it asks the court to dismiss the leave motion, which is set to be heard on January 20 and 21, 2027, per the Seventh Report, Oct. 30, 2026, paras. 48, 51–52, 168. Three expert reports were filed with it as part of the receiver's response. Leave has not been granted, the unitholders' claims of gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty against the receiver are allegations, and no order on the leave motion is in the record. The fight over the deadline was reported here on September 1.

"Not actually worded as an order"

The endorsement turns on what Justice Steele's November 4, 2025 endorsement was. In Regional Senior Justice MacLeod's reading it records an agreement between the parties on the terms of an adjournment, in wording the parties drafted; it "does not specifically impose a litigation bar," and the parties took no steps to formalize it or deal with any ambiguity. The court was "not suggesting that the endorsement is not intended to impose those terms but it is not actually worded as an order," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, para. 15(vi). The terms were agreed between the receiver's counsel and a single unitholder who, the court says, did not purport to represent anyone but that unitholder and one other; the rest "were on notice of the proceedings and could have participated but they were not party to any agreement." One of the adjournment's obvious purposes, as the court describes it, was to let unitholders decide whether to seek leave, to identify who they were and to confirm the basis on which they sought to proceed, and "Those purposes were accomplished by delivery of the notice of motion," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 15(iii), 15(v).

The court did not discount the bar: timetables and orders "are to be respected and not treated as mere suggestions," and a litigation bar "is an important tool in receiverships in appropriate circumstances," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, para. 15(ii). But had the court been told that the notice was served and the affidavits, the expert's in particular, would take time, the endorsement says, "I have little doubt that a timetable would have been established for delivery of the motion record." The only reason that did not occur, the court wrote, was the need for the Toronto judges to recuse themselves and the appointment of a case management judge. The court's own view was that "the attempted compliance was reasonable given the number of unitholders involved and there is no real prejudice to the Receiver," and "the delivery of a detailed notice of motion was a reasonable effort to comply," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 16–17.

The notice and the draft claim disclosed the names of the 31 proposed plaintiffs, and besides a number of lawyers "the names included several judges based in Toronto or elsewhere in the GTA." At that point Regional Senior Justice Firestone asked Regional Senior Justice MacLeod, the lead judge for the East Region Commercial List in Ottawa, to take on case management and hear the motions "to avoid any appearance of conflict," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, para. 13, n. 10.

The endorsement also separates the claim from the estate. The appointment order bars any proceeding against the receiver without its consent or the court's leave, and relieves it of liability "save and except for any gross negligence or willful misconduct on its part," as the endorsement quotes it. The release in the model discharge order, the court notes, carries the same exceptions, so a gross negligence claim "would appear to be a claim that would survive a discharge order (if leave is granted)." The receiver has not been discharged, and the court said it "would be prepared to grant a discharge order that excludes the claim asserted in the main motion," because the proposed claim "is against the Receiver in its professional capacity and is not a claim against the estate," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 4, 15(vii)–(ix).

The six additional unitholders stand differently. The evidence, the court wrote, is that they were on notice of every step in the receivership, and it is possible that justice requires "a further indulgence or the equivalent of relief from forfeiture" in light of evidence that some did not receive actual notice, did not see the electronic notification or did not understand its significance. A factor in that decision, the court wrote, would be the merits: "It is one thing to exclude a litigant from participating in litigation which has a mere possibility of success, it may be another to exclude them from participating in a case which appears to be a sure thing. 'Gross negligence' is a high bar, and this will be an issue on the main motion," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, para. 18. The court released its decision without ruling on what it called "significant evidentiary arguments," because it did not have to rely on or give weight to any of the disputed evidence, and reserved the right to release those rulings later. The parties had undertaken not to appeal the ruling until after the main motion, and costs are reserved to it, per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 19–20, 22.

"Without merit"

The unitholders allege, in the endorsement's words, that "the actions or inactions of the Receiver produced a combined loss of $100 million," and their notice of motion and draft notice of action assert "gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty," per the Endorsement of MacLeod RSJ, Sept. 15, 2026, paras. 7, 15(viii). Their expert, a licensed insolvency trustee, gave the opinion in an April 2 report that the receiver's conduct "constituted a significant and marked breach of its duties to act prudently and reasonably." Among the six departures it lists are failing to seek a formal and definitive legal opinion on the standstill or the court's directions, exercising warrants and converting debentures with no idea how the shares would be monetized, and not reporting to the court and stakeholders for 1,289 days. "Instead, it sat doing nothing while the price of Voxtur shares ran up and back down," it says, per the Supplementary Motion Record (unitholders' expert), Apr. 6, 2026, Tab 1; Ex. "A", paras. 5, 7, 66, 68–74.