Trevali: sixty cents on the dollar, and a claim against the broker

In the year before it filed, Trevali Mining Corporation sold $343.6 million of concentrate out of four mines — Perkoa in the Sanguié province of Burkina Faso, Rosh Pinah at the edge of the Namib Desert in southwestern Namibia, Caribou some 55 kilometres west of Bathurst in northern New Brunswick, and Santander in Peru, which it sold in December 2021. Zinc was about 90 per cent of the revenue, and one counterparty bought all of it: Glencore held life-of-mine offtake agreements over every tonne the company produced, a 26 per cent equity stake that made it the largest shareholder, the right to appoint two directors and nominate two more, and a second-lien facility drawn to its $13.0 million limit. The three operating mines carried 882 employees and 765 contractors, run out of a 44-person head office on West Hastings Street in Vancouver, per the Affidavit of Brendan Creaney, Aug. 19, 2022, paras. 8–12, 33, 35, 37, 45, 53.

On September 1, 2026, Trevali Corp. held US$1,899,000 in cash, per the Twenty-Fifth Report of the Monitor, Sept. 18, 2026, para. 46. It has had no employees and no director since the end of June 2023, which is also when its directors' and officers' insurance expired, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, para. 13. Every mine it operated has been sold or handed to a regulator; what is left is that cash, a holdback reserve, and what the monitor calls the estate's remaining avenues of recovery.

FTI Consulting Canada Inc., monitor since the amended and restated initial order of August 29, 2022, filed its twenty-fifth report on September 18, 2026, together with an application returnable September 29 for four orders: a stay extension to March 31, 2027; a second interim distribution of CAD 8.1 million to unsecured creditors; approval of a settlement with the Appian funds that ends the last of the litigation over the Rosh Pinah sale; and a claims process for any claim against Trevali's directors and officers arising after the filing date, per the Twenty-Fifth Report of the Monitor, Sept. 18, 2026, paras. 2, 25, 64.

The flood, and the contractor that stopped

The company's account of how it got here is in the first affidavit of its chief financial officer. Unseasonal rainfall near the Perkoa mine on April 16, 2022 created a flash flood that breached the mine's safety controls and flooded the underground workings, trapping eight workers, whose bodies were recovered in May and June. Removing the water took more than 165 million litres out of the mine, along with more than 9,000 cubic metres of solids, and cost over $15 million between April 16 and June 30 with a further $10 million after that. Perkoa's payable zinc production fell more than 80 per cent against the prior quarter, per the Affidavit of Brendan Creaney, Aug. 19, 2022, paras. 14–17.

Caribou failed on a different arithmetic. The cost of producing a pound of payable zinc there, with sustaining capital, was $1.01 in the second quarter of 2021 and $2.20 in the second quarter of 2022, against a fixed price of $1.25 a pound that Trevali had committed to on 115 million pounds of zinc through December 2022. On August 8, 2022 the mine's underground contractor, Redpath Canada Limited, served a notice of default over CDN $3,483,040.51 of overdue invoices and reserved the right to draw a $2.5 million letter of credit; Trevali NB had roughly $15 million of accounts payable and accruals at the mine, about $9 million of it beyond terms, and $3.2 million of cash. Production was suspended effective August 15, per the Affidavit of Brendan Creaney, Aug. 19, 2022, paras. 20–24, 60–65. Between April 14 and August 18, 2022, the company's market capitalization fell from about CDN $187 million to CDN $20.4 million, per the Affidavit of Brendan Creaney, Aug. 19, 2022, para. 25.

What sold, and what nobody bid on

The sale process approved on September 14, 2022 produced one transaction of size: Trevali Corp.'s 90 per cent interest in Rosh Pinah, its primary asset of value, sold as the shares of GLCR Limited to Appian Natural Resources Fund III LP and Appian Natural Resources (UST) Fund III LP under a share and asset purchase agreement dated December 15, 2022, approved on December 21 and closed on June 23, 2023. On closing, the interim financing balance, the revolving credit facility and the Glencore facility were repaid in full, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, paras. 8–12.

Caribou drew no bids at all before the process's October 7, 2022 letter-of-intent deadline. FTI was appointed receiver of Trevali NB's assets on January 9, 2023 — over everything except the real property, mineral claims and mining leases, which stayed outside the receivership — and the Province of New Brunswick's Department of Natural Resources stepped in as regulator to carry out care and maintenance at the Caribou, Restigouche and Halfmile sites, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, paras. 17–21. The first going-concern buyer did not close. A term sheet signed on November 6, 2023 with Eagle Pass Mining Corp. was assigned in early January 2024 to Bathurst Metals Corp., which renamed itself Bathurst Metallic Corp. and executed two asset purchase agreements on April 27, 2024; it could not satisfy their terms, its $225,000 deposit was forfeited, and the agreements were terminated on September 3, 2024, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, paras. 33–37.

Canadian Copper Inc. put a draft term sheet in front of the receiver twelve days after that termination, on September 15, 2024; it was executed on October 28, 2024 and amended and restated on June 16, 2025 to extend the time for satisfying its conditions, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, paras. 38–40. On June 29, 2026, Justice Fitzpatrick approved the receiver's sale of the Caribou assets to Canadian Copper under an asset purchase agreement dated June 24, 2026, expanding the receivership's definition of "Property" to take in the real property assets the January 2023 order had left out, and vesting them free of encumbrances on delivery of the receiver's certificate, per the Order (Sale Approval and Vesting Order), June 29, 2026, paras. 2–6. The same day she approved a settlement and support agreement under which the receiver pays $4,050,100 to the province out of closing proceeds, conditional on gross proceeds of not less than $6,225,000, in exchange for the province releasing its claims against the residual proceeds and supporting the sale, per the Order (Settlement and Support Agreement), June 29, 2026, paras. 2, 6. The applicants say why the province had to be paid: the sale requires its consents and cooperation, which makes the settlement agreement "a critical precondition" to the transaction, per the Notice of Application, June 24, 2026, Part 2, paras. 43–46.

Sixty cents, and CAD 2.3 million held back

The claims procedure order of March 29, 2023 did not dispose of everything. In April 2024 the court held that the proof of claim filed by the shareholder representatives fell outside that process and would be adjudicated by an alternative procedure that included mediation; a settlement was reached on March 11, 2025, the stay was lifted on March 17, 2025 so that a class action could proceed and the class certified for settlement purposes, and the settlement was approved on June 6, 2025, per the Twenty-Fifth Report of the Monitor, Sept. 18, 2026, paras. 7, 11–13.