An Ontario judge says any outstanding issues regarding a proposed $32.5 billion settlement between three major tobacco companies and their creditors should be solvable in the coming months. Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz released his reasons for approving a motion last week to have creditors’ representatives review and vote on the proposal in December.
One of the companies, JTI-Macdonald Corp., said last week it objects to the plan in its current form and asked the court to postpone scheduling the vote until several issues were resolved. The other two companies, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., didn’t oppose the motion but said they retained the right to contest the proposed plan.
The proposal announced last month includes $24 billion for provinces and territories seeking to recover smoking-related healthcare costs and about $6 billion for smokers across Canada and their loved ones.
If a majority of creditors accept the proposed deal, it will move on to the next step: a hearing to obtain the court’s approval, tentatively scheduled for early next year. In a written decision released Monday, Morawetz said it was clear that not all issues had been resolved at this stage of the proceedings.
He pointed to “outstanding issues” between the companies regarding their respective shares of the total payout and debate over the creditor status of one of JTI-Macdonald’s affiliate companies. In order to have creditors vote on a proposal, the court must be satisfied the plan isn’t “doomed to fail” either at the creditors or court approval stages, court heard last week, media reports.
Lawyers representing plaintiffs in two Quebec class actions, those representing smokers in the rest of Canada, and 10 out of 13 provinces and territories have expressed their support for the proposal, the judge wrote in his ruling. While JTI-Macdonald said its concerns have not been addressed, the company’s lawyer “acknowledged that the issues were solvable,” Morawetz wrote.
“At this stage, I am unable to conclude that the plans are doomed to fail,” he said. “There are a number of outstanding issues as between the parties, but there are no issues that, in my view, cannot be solved.”
The proposed settlement is the culmination of more than five years of negotiations in what Morawetz has called one of “the most complex insolvency proceedings in Canadian history.”