Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Pensions - Pension surplus - Transfer of assets to new plan - Plan expenses - Successor employer establishing new pension plan for transferred employees - Appellant representative plaintiffs claiming entitlement to pro rata share of surplus in original plan on behalf of transferred employees and seeking declaration that original employer had improperly paid pension plan expenses from pension fund - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in law by holding that the departing members had no equitable interest in the surplus which had accumulated in the contributory defined benefit HBC Plan - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in law by holding that where a corporation divides trust funds in an ongoing pension plan between two beneficiary groups, to accommodate the sale of part of its business through the creation of a successor pension plan, there is no obligation to transfer any part of the surplus attributable to the departing beneficiaries to the new plan - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in law by holding that the failure of HBC to administer its HBC Plan in an even-handed manner in the division of trust funds between beneficiary groups was appropriate and that the requirement to act in an even-handed manner could be and was displaced, despite the absence of express provisions sanctioning differing beneficiary treatment in an ongoing plan - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in applying and extending the principles in Kerry (Canada) Inc. v. D.C.A., 2007 ONCA 416, to the case at bar and by holding, as a result, that the trustee and administrative expenses in issue had been properly charged against the trust funds in the HBC Plan as a result of amendments purporting to permit such payments.

The Hudson’s Bay Company (“HBC”) provides a pension plan for its employees. When HBC sold one of its divisions, the employees of that division became employees of the purchaser, which established a pension plan for them. The Appellants are representative plaintiffs of the transferred employees. They brought an action in which they sought a declaration that HBC had improperly taken contribution holidays and paid pension plan expenses from the pension fund, and an order requiring HBC to transfer a pro rata share of surplus from its pension plan into the new pension plan.