MONTREAL – Late Monday, BCE Inc. announced that the Supreme Court of Canada has granted its motion to expedite the leave application pertaining to the decision of the Québec Court of Appeal released on May 21, 2008 denying approval for the plan of arrangement related to the proposed privatization of BCE.
Last week, the Quebec court overturned a lower court ruling and sided with bondholders who say their bonds will be reduced to junk status with the amount of debt the new owners are taking on in order to finance the privatization.
As previously indicated, BCE, Bell Canada, together with the purchaser (led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan), will seek leave to appeal. The $52 billion transaction hangs in the balance while this drags on.
The Supreme Court has established the following schedule in connection with the application for leave to appeal.
* The application for leave to appeal and motion to expedite the hearing shall be served and filed by May 28, 2008;
* Any responses to the application for leave and motion to expedite shall be served and filed by May 30, 2008.
In the event leave to appeal is granted and the motion to expedite the hearing is granted, the Court suggests that the following timelines apply:
* The appellants’ factums, record and book of authorities to be served and filed by June 6, 2008;
* Any applications for leave to intervene to be served and filed by June 6, 2008;
* The respondents’ factums, records and books of authorities to be served and filed by June 10, 2008;
* The interveners’ factums to be served and filed by June 10, 2008;
* The reply factum, if permitted under the rules of the Supreme Court, to be served and filed by June 12, 2008;
* The appeal to be heard on June 17, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. The appellants to share one hour for oral argument and the respondents to share one hour for oral argument. Any intervener permitted to make an oral argument shall have 10 minutes to do so.
In light of the Québec Court of Appeal’s decision, the closing of the transaction will be contingent on the Supreme Court of Canada granting leave to appeal and the reversal by the Supreme Court of the judgment of the Québec Court of Appeal relating to the plan of arrangement.
The buyers had been hoping to close, finally, by June 30, but also have disgruntled banks to deal with, too.
