by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Trustee BDO Canada Limited will keep its bankruptcy files on Pigeon King International and Arlan Galbraith open pending the outcome of criminal proceedings against the defunct company’s owner.
“We’ve been on hold a little bit because the police have been working on this,” says Susan Taves, spokesperson and vice president of the Kitchener-based bankruptcy trustee. “The fact they’ve actually now laid the charges is helpful because it’s clear to everyone why we have to wait.”
Galbraith was released on bail yesterday after being formally charged with one count of fraud over $5,000 and four offenses against the Bankruptcy Act. Police began investigating the pigeon breeder more than two years ago after closed his doors and put his firm into bankruptcy.
If a restitution for funds to be repaid is ordered, Taves says “we expect that would be paid to us as the trustee,” so that BDO could distribute it to creditors. “It can take quite some time for criminal charges to actually be prosecuted,” she says.
To date, in Galbraith’s personal bankruptcy, the trustee has retrieved $225,000 from the sale of Galbraith’s 300-acre property near Cochrane, Ontario and about $400,000 from investments and cash. “It’s a small amount to pay out at this point in time because there are so many creditors and the dollar amount is quite low,” Taves says. “We’ll probably just wait until the whole criminal charge is figured out.”
So far, about $200,000 of the money collected has gone towards professional fees, Taves says.
The Cochrane sale was closed last month and the proceeds are in a trust account. Taves would not disclose the buyer. The sale was a completely public process with many bidders and the buyer has no connection to Galbraith, she says.
“We’ve been asked that before on other files,” she says. “I think as a trustee in bankruptcy I’m an officer of the court, I’m not sure it’s my place to disclose who we end up selling assets to. I would probably have that same answer on any other file.”
She says the bankruptcy firm has not been in touch with Galbraith recently because it hasn’t been necessary. BF
Comments
I am not at all certain that I want BDO to be responsible for any distribution of funds that may be restituted to creditors of former PKI. Throughout this long 2 1/2 year investigation, I felt a little comforted in the fact that the police were making an effort to keep the investigation moving along despite the slow rate of progress. BDO Canada Ltd. on the other hand has done very little in my opinion and the opinions of others i talk to to merit the excessive fees and embursements they have saw fit to award themselves. The biggest disappointment in this whole affair regarding the bankrupcty of PKI has been the attitude and lack of concern shown by BDO canada.
signed a Canadian pigeon investor.
Anyone who has ever been an Executor of a complicated estate will undoubtably have heard similar comments about his/her supposed mis-handling of the estate.
Twas always thus - people who don't know anyting about the legislated obligations and responsibilities incumbent on anyone placed in a position of being a legal trustee, always complain, and 99% of the time, simply don't know what they are talking about.
For example,in the case of Executors, if anything goes wrong, they can be held personally responsibility for any oversights they might make, and what outsiders see as a lack of concern is almost always, in reality, almost too much concern, on the part of the Executors, about getting it right.
In short, unless and/or until you've been a trustee, don't complain about what you don't know.
Well said.
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