Trinity Automotive: two days, six transfers, and a sale process

Justice Dunphy was urged on September 8 to treat the Trinity Auto Group's CCAA proceeding as though it were a receivership. He wrote that his answer would have been much the same either way. "I cannot decide in advance that the respondents have nothing to say when they have had no reasonable time to absorb and respond," he wrote in his endorsement, and he put the monitor's sale-process motion over two days, to 2 p.m. on September 10, per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, paras. 4–5.

The dispute that brought the parties to that attendance — Bank of Montreal's floorplan losses on vehicles sold in violation, the enhanced powers given to the monitor, Goldhar & Associates Ltd., and the respondents' objections to the timing of the motion and the choice of BDO as sales agent — was reported here on September 7. Over the next three days the court signed one order on the spot, asked for more disclosure on another, and adjourned the rest. On September 8 itself, TD Bank told the monitor it had flagged six transfers out of three of the companies' accounts, and by the time the court sat again the monitor had terminated the group's chief financial officer.

Fairness and urgency

The endorsement opens by placing the case: "a creditor-initiated CCAA process where the Monitor has been assigned fairly significant receiver-like authority to manage the business and conduct a sales process." Justice Dunphy recorded that the respondents had not opposed the initial order before Justice Black or the amended and restated order before Justice Conway in August, and that they had since engaged counsel to object to parts of what the monitor now sought, per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 1.

He took the motion in three parts. The critical vendor relief was unopposed, and he told the monitor he would sign it on a stand-alone basis that day, per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 2(a). He did: the Critical Vendor Order of September 8 amends paragraph 9(a)(iv) of the amended and restated initial order so that the debtors and the monitor may pay up to $1,000,000 of pre-filing obligations to critical vendors, "as determined by the Monitor in its sole discretion," per the Critical Vendor Order, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 3.

On the key employee retention plan, he found the record "somewhat deficient." The aggregate had been disclosed, but "it would be helpful to know how many affected employees there are (a reasonable 'not less than X and not more than Y' at least should be disclosed) and at least a range (eg high, low and median) should also be disclosable without undue issue." The respondents, he noted, would argue that they should have the confidential list of names and amounts, and he had not ruled on that, per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 2(b). The sale process itself he called "relatively 'plain vanilla'": no stalking horse, a sales agent canvassing the market for expressions of interest and then concrete proposals, and a winning bid "over the next 10-12 weeks." The respondents' complaint, as he summarized it, was "the alleged lack of transparency regarding the process of selecting a sales agent and the related success fee," per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 2(c).

The adjournment turned on service: counsel for the respondents, D.J. Miller, "fairly observes that the motion material was only delivered on the eve of the long weekend," and had not had an adequate opportunity to absorb it, seek instructions or seek clarification. The monitor and the bank questioned what relevance the respondents' issues had and what standing the respondents had, and pointed to "the operational challenges experienced to date in the Monitor assuming management authority in this fairly complex business and the losses that have already been incurred," per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, para. 3. The court's answer: "Fairness and urgency are not always in unalterable contradiction with each other. The proposed sales process will take some time at all events. A short delay of only two days will not impose any undue delay or harm." Justice Dunphy booked a 90-minute appointment for September 10, said he would sweep Case Centre by noon that day for new material, and encouraged the parties to keep narrowing the issues, per the Endorsement of Justice Dunphy, Sept. 8, 2026, paras. 4–5.

Six transfers from three accounts

The monitor's third supplement to its second report, dated September 9, says a TD Bank representative contacted the monitor on September 8 to advise that transactions across three of the companies' TD accounts — those of Trinity Car Sales Inc., Trinity Auto Inc. and Mississauga Chrysler — had been flagged by the bank. TD said the transactions were initiated from July 28 to August 6, 2026, and totalled $769,659.95, per the Third Supplement to the Monitor's Second Report, Sept. 9, 2026, paras. 5–6. The report itself notes that August 6 was the day before the initial order was granted, per the Third Supplement to the Monitor's Second Report, Sept. 9, 2026, para. 3(a). TD's flag is TD's; no court has examined the transfers, and nothing in the report is a finding.