TPine: one default judgment, at 24%, for the undefended truck leases

In January the receiver of Pride Group's truck-lease securitization vehicle described a portfolio that kept moving out of reach. Of approximately 340 vehicles sent out for repossession, ten had been recovered; the equipment "is typically in constant motion and difficult to locate," the bailiffs "have exhausted all leads," and approximately 30% of the GPS devices in it were active. "Remarkably, many of the Defaulting Obligors who have refused to make their monthly lease payments are still in possession of and continue to use the leased Equipment," BDO Canada Limited wrote, and in several cases obligors had been in accidents that damaged the leased equipment and led to insurance claims, per the Second Report of the Receiver, Jan. 6, 2026, paras. 40, 46. Arrears more than 75 days delinquent stood at $55.9 million at September 30, 2025, 76.4% of them aged over 365 days, and 1,226 VINs, or 48.5%, were in default (Second Report, para. 37).

The leases were written by TPine Leasing Capital Corporation, the Canadian leasing arm of the Pride Group, and sold on a fully serviced basis to TPine Canada Securitization LP, a special purpose vehicle that borrowed against them under a program for which Royal Bank of Canada acts as Financial Services Agent. When the Pride CCAA court let TLCC hand over its servicing duties on August 8, 2024, the performing portfolio held approximately 1,633 leases on 2,529 assets. BDO, engaged by RBC as financial advisor in January 2024, lists the "serious financial issues" it identified in TLCC's handling of the assets, among them "the disclosure of numerous double vended vehicles with duplicate VIN registrations," per the Second Report, paras. 3–5, 9. RBC applied, and on September 24, 2024 the court appointed BDO receiver of the repossessed vehicles under section 101 of the Courts of Justice Act (Second Report, paras. 1, 10). The application was unopposed, Justice Osborne noted; without the appointment, he wrote, the vehicles "would be effectively stranded on lots owned by Pride Entities" (Endorsement of Justice Osborne, Sept. 30, 2024, paras. 3–4, 6). The appointment was extended to all of the SPV's property on March 17, 2025, and at December 29, 2025 the receiver put the FSA's debt at $700,000 under the receiver's borrowing charge and approximately $209,256,885.45 on the securitization facility (Second Report, paras. 2, 110).

Silence as an admission

On January 13, 2026, Justice Cavanagh approved BDO's answer, a collection plan developed with the assistance of Alvarez & Marsal Canada Inc., the court-appointed manager of certain property of TLCC in the CCAA, which obtained a collection plan order of its own the same day (Notice to Defaulting Obligors, Jan. 13, 2026, p. 1; Second Report, para. 53). Under the receiver's order, each Receiver's Claim is itself an initiating process against the obligor, whether lessee, co-lessee, guarantor or indemnitor. It claims the arrears, every amount that has or will become due to the end of the lease, a $1,000 fee for legal and collection costs, the receiver's costs from the order's date, and interest at 24% a year "as set out in the applicable Lease" or, in the alternative, at the Courts of Justice Act rate, per the Second Report, para. 60 and the Collection Plan Order, Jan. 13, 2026, paras. 2(x), 16–17. The obligor has 45 days to take the settlement offer or file a notice of dispute. One who does neither is deemed to admit every allegation of fact in the claim, amounts included, and the receiver "shall be entitled to omnibus default judgment(s)" (Collection Plan Order, paras. 2(cc), 20, 23, 47–49). An obligor still holding equipment without a settlement must turn it over within 10 days after the deadline, dispute or no dispute. The receiver may bring a dispute to the court or refer it to the Hon. Thomas J. McEwen, one of two claims officers the order appoints, who may assign it to the other, Kevin McElcheran; a claims officer's decision can be appealed to the court, and jury notices are prohibited (Collection Plan Order, paras. 24, 26, 35, 42, 61).

The settlement offers could extend a lease by up to 12 months with the arrears folded into the payments, set a payment plan, or take the equipment back for sale against the arrears; if a truck sells for more than the judgment against its obligor, the surplus goes back to the obligor (Second Report, paras. 61, 66). The receiver and the manager, in a joint factum, pointed to two earlier Commercial List collection plan orders, in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v. Simranjit Dhillon (2020) and Carriage Hills Vacation Owners Association (2021), which gave 30 days to respond. They presented the plans as a way to deal with "the hundreds of potential claims" against defaulting obligors "without having to bring potentially hundreds of lease disputes before the Court" (Joint Factum of the Receiver and the Manager, Jan. 8, 2026, paras. 8, 50, 52, n. 64). Before the plan, BDO had tried letters: it sent 423 demand letters in early November 2025, on 797 leases carrying $55,927,459 of arrears, and 73 of the obligors responded; 59 of the 206 obligors offered a chance to rehabilitate their accounts replied (Second Report, paras. 47–52).

What the mail brought back

The Notice to Defaulting Obligors ran in Truck News on February 26, 2026, in English and in Punjabi, which the receiver understands is the first language of certain obligors (Third Report of the Receiver, June 30, 2026, para. 16; Second Report, para. 64). On March 6 BDO mailed claims packages on 1,040 leases to 558 lessees, representing 1,532 unique VINs, and between March 20 and 24 sent 620 emails to those whose addresses it had; on March 31 it mailed 980 packages to co-lessees, indemnitors and personal guarantors, over 2,000 of them in all. The response deadlines, April 20 for lessees and May 15 for the others, were aligned at May 15 (Third Report, paras. 16–17).

By June 30 the receiver had heard from 314 obligors on 587 leases, or 826 VINs, which it puts at a response rate of 54% of the defaulting obligors' VINs. Five obligors had settled 11 leases for $2,310,000, all of it received. Payment plans on eight more leases were estimated at $231,934; $171,847 had come in. Thirteen obligors on 28 leases made settlement offers the receiver would not accept; asked through its counsel to keep negotiating, file a notice of dispute or return the equipment, they have done neither, and the receiver intends to treat them as undefending. In 14 instances, obligors on 86 leases and 231 VINs were in insolvency proceedings of their own, and the receiver removed those leases from the plan; in many of those cases, the receiver says, the trustee or court officer advised that the equipment could not be located (Third Report, paras. 17–18, 24–25).