Three former executives of Lion Électrique have hired a lawyer in the hope of being paid sums owed to them.
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Julie Savonitto told judge Michel Pinsonnault on Tuesday that under agreements signed with Lion, the salaries of these three ex-managers were to be paid until January 3 or 7.
“These payments have been stopped,” declared M.e Savonitto au tribunal.
«Mes clients […] should be added to the creditors,” she added, without revealing their identity.
Remember that since January 2024, approximately 1,150 Lion workers and executives have been laid off or dismissed due to the serious financial difficulties of the Saint-Jérôme electric bus and truck manufacturer.
-Note that the approximately 550 Lion employees laid off last week and in December are not entitled, for the moment, to severance pay, because in theory, the company could call them back to work.
Liquidators
On Tuesday, the Superior Court extended until February 14 the protection enjoyed by Lion under the Creditors Arrangement Act.
Accountant Jean-François Nadon of Deloitte, who is overseeing Lion’s restructuring, told the court that National Bank Financial (FBN) solicited 136 potential buyers in the hope of finding a buyer for the company.
To this list was added “around ten” other entities “who raised their hands” by contacting the FBN to receive documents detailing the business opportunity that Lion represents.
Deloitte also contacted 11 firms specializing in the liquidation of assets not “with the objective of liquidating the company”, but above all to establish a “floor price for a transaction” of sale of Lion to buyers, explained Mr. Nadon.
Exit the trucks
In the document that the FBN sent to potential buyers, it mentions a “revised business plan”, in which Lion would abandon trucks to concentrate on school buses.
According to the FBN, the company could be profitable by producing 550 buses per year. If it only sold 350 buses during the first nine months of 2024, it had delivered more than 770 in 2023.
