Laurentian receives $4.725M legal bill from insolvency monitor

A court hearing next week will seek approval for a $4.725 million legal bill from the legal firms helping Laurentian University emerge from insolvency.

The bill is from the monitor of the process, Ernst & Young, and firms it contracted to provide additional services between January and July of this year.

Under the Companies' Creditor Arrangement Act (CCAA), the monitor in insolvency provides oversight of the restructuring process, acting as an independent observer and providing opinions to the court.

Services include working with creditors and other parties to the process to come to agreements on outstanding issues. In Laurentian's case, that included groups such as the former federated universities, outstanding union grievances, dealing with major lenders and creditors, among many other services.

The $4.725 million bill comes from three firms: Ernst & Young, which charged 3,787 hours at an average hourly billing rate of $606; accounting professionals at E&Y (referred to as 'EY FAAS') charged for an additional 780.7 hours at an average hourly billing rate of $562; and, Stikeman Elliott LLP charged for 2,146.5 professional hours at an average hourly rate of $928.

"It is the monitor’s view that its fees and disbursements and the fees and disbursements of EY FAAS and Stikeman are reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances having regard to the scope of activity undertaken by the monitor in the CCAA proceeding and the positive strides made in the applicant’s complex and comprehensive restructuring thus far," Ernst & Young said in its court filing.

"The efforts of the Monitor and its counsel … facilitated and assisted LU in successfully reaching significant achievements in its restructuring, with resulting benefits to its general body of creditors and other stakeholders."

The application to have the fees approved will be heard at a hearing Oct. 12. Laurentian has agreed on a plan to deal with its creditors and aims to emerge from insolvency in November.

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