Behind the scenes of a multi-million bankruptcy

Weighed down by debts of 19.9 million, LA Renaissance des Îles (LRDI) had to put an end to its seafood processing operations after the rejection by vote of its creditors of a proposal in which we can read that the “ governments [ont] invested several tens of millions since 2014 in subsidies, programs and others” in this company.

Since 2014, LRDI has been administered by a single person, New Brunswicker Lynn Albert. The proposal from a company belonging to him had received the approval of the Quebec government to take over the activities of the Cap-sur-Mer company, then in serious financial difficulties.

Businessman Alain Lord Mounir was put in contact with Lynn Albert in the summer of 2020, a meeting that would have been a turning point for LRDI. Apéri-Fruits Compton Inc., a company owned by Mr. Lord Mounir, then became one of its main clients. The crab and lobster sold to him were prepared and packaged by employees of LA Renaissance des Îles under the name Araynes, before being shipped to a refrigerated warehouse and distributed to Costco stores.

Before meeting Lynn Albert, Alain Lord Mounir and his company Apéri-Fruits Compton were dedicated to the bottling and distribution of wines from suppliers for Julia Wine, another of Mr. Mounir’s companies. He also made headlines about ten years ago for having challenged the ban on identifying grape varieties for his wines sold in Couche-Tard convenience stores.

A battle he won, grape varieties can now be indicated for all wines sold elsewhere than at the SAQ. Today, Julia Wine wines are sold in Costco.

After the bankruptcy of LRDI in February 2023, Alain Lord Mounir submitted a takeover proposal via Icéto, a company of which he is the president and sole shareholder. Even though Icéto’s offer of 7.5 million was $850,000 higher, Métivier trustee Roy Roberge preferred the 6.65 million offered by Pêcheries Léomar, a company whose owner is already established in the archipelago, who works in the same industry and who did not impose any conditions for the takeover.

The trustee Roy Métivier Roberge is jointly demanding from Apéri-Fruits and Alain Lord Mounir personally a reimbursement of 3.27 million with interest, including 1.7 million in unpaid invoices and 1.5 million coming from a 20% reduction, applied even when LRDI was under the protection of the Bankruptcy Act.

“When we took possession of the Apéri-Fruits documents, we discovered 26 invoices which were corrected or canceled, which represents sums of approximately 5 million dollars,” detailed trustee José Roberge, in February 2024 , before the court in the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

During these same hearings, Mr. Lord Mounir admitted to having presented himself under another name in his first exchanges with Mr. Roberge, to whom he sent emails signed “Stéphane Boucher” from the address lawyerstanford@ yahoo.com.

The trustee’s lawyer asked him: “Stéphane Boucher. Was that you?” He responded straight away: “yes, I say it clearly.” Then “[email protected], is that you?” Answer: “yes”.

In the fall, the trustee filed an amended version of his claim request, personally including Mr. Mounir. “The trustee intends to demonstrate that[Apéri-fruits] and Mr. Mounir committed fraudulent actions by hiding the existence of documents from the Court and the trustee or by falsifying certain other documents in order to evade Apéri-Fruits from its obligations,” it is now alleged.

Mr. Lord Mounir challenged the choice of trustee in court. He alleges that the tender was illegal and flawed. He requested that this process and the sale of LRDI’s assets to Pêcheries Léomar be canceled, in addition to the dismissal of the trustee.

Creditors, including fishermen, have lined up behind him, like the maritime transport cooperative CTMA, on which Pêcheries Léomar depends to ship its products.

In March, Judge Marc Paradis rejected his allegations outright. “The applicants’ position is unfounded,” ruled the magistrate. Mr. Lord Mounir “is solely responsible for the rejection of Icéto’s submission by the trustee,” he added in his judgment, appealed.

In interview with The Sun On December 18, Mr. Lord Mounir called for the tender process to be restarted from the beginning.

“We just want the process to be more transparent, to get things started again. […] It could, first of all, be open to everyone.”

— Businessman Alain Lord Mounir

Mr. Lord Mounir also filed last June a request for defamation proceedings against the trustee José Roberge. He accused him of having damaged his reputation in a written statement under oath in which he indicated that he had “identified transactions linked to Lynn Albert and Alain Lord Mounir which would amount to violations of the Bankruptcy and insolvency, namely false registrations, obtaining credits under false representations and concealing a debt.

On September 17, 2024, Judge Damien St-Onge of the Superior Court rejected the request, finding in particular that “the appeal in question was doomed to failure”.

This judgment was appealed.

Lynn Albert

Around fifteen sources were consulted as part of our investigation, which spanned more than a year and a half. It emerged from these testimonies that Alain Lord Mounir would have had influence on the patroness of LA Renaissance des Îles, Lynn Albert.

A source who worked closely with her recalls that her behavior changed dramatically after spending the 2020 holiday season with him in Barbados, where he owns a condo. “Afterwards, we had less contact with her, then, nothing. […] He went so far as to make her believe that he was her half-brother! She cut ties with everyone, she created a void around her.”

The latter, like several with whom we spoke, asked to preserve her anonymity for fear of reprisals. This is the case of another ex-employee of LRDI who also noticed the actions of Ms. Albert after her meeting with Mr. Lord Mounir. “She talked about him constantly, she was in total admiration.”

Another person who was friendly with her speaks of a subjugated woman: “she drank the Cool-Aid”, an expression meaning that she trusted him blindly.

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May 2021, Lynn Albert, without notice, terminated the employment of the three directors who had for years ensured the smooth running of the operations of the company, which employs up to 300 workers during the fishing season.

These three people were informed on the morning of the 14th that they had to leave the premises immediately. They were also minority shareholders in the company, and one of them was her uncle, her father’s brother.

The three ex-shareholders sued LRDI and Lynn Albert for “oppressive and abusive conduct”, a dispute which ended in January 2022 with a settlement of $945,000.

Even though her company had sheltered itself from its creditors, Ms. Albert led a comfortable lifestyle at the wheel of a $169,000 Mercedes paid for from LRDI’s coffers, as shown in the inventory. of bankruptcy. She was also going to spend several weekends in Montreal by plane, staying at the chic Ritz-Carlton, according to a former employee who worked in the administration.

In court in February in the Magdalen Islands, Lynn Albert indicated under oath that she had gone to live in Barbados a year earlier, in the days following the bankruptcy. “I surf”, live “like a snowbird“, she replied about her occupations there, specifying that she had gone in August to her home in Caraquet, New Brunswick.

In the spring of 2023, Ms. Albert was introduced on social media as the new owner of a restaurant in Barbados, Baby Doll. On the establishment’s Facebook page, it is indicated that it has been closed since June 2024. In court in February, when asked if she “operated a business”, she answered “no”.

We tried several times to contact Ms. Albert by email, by Messenger and by telephone, two numbers were no longer in service, the third did not have a voicemail. We also attempted to contact two of his lawyers by email and one of them by LinkedIn. All messages sent went unanswered.

His Facebook page disappeared shortly after Messenger sent our interview request along with the questions we wanted to ask him.

Tests d’ADN

In 2022, Lynn Albert and Alain Lord Mounir announced with great fanfare to the staff of LA Renaissance des Îles that they had family ties. One of the ex-employees remembers it like it was yesterday.

“She was very happy to tell us this in the conference room. Alain, he was there, they told us that they had taken DNA tests, that they were half-brother and half-sister. Lynn said, “I’m so lucky and I never had a brother!”

From there, Ms. Albert and Mr. Lord Mounir presented themselves publicly as being related, to the point where the media that covered the LRDI saga described them as half-brother and half-sister. For example, on November 23, 2023, - headlined on its website “THE Renaissance of the Islands: more than 3 million claimed from the ex-CEO’s half-brother”.

An analysis report which supported this claim – and of which we obtained a copy – bears the heading of Endeavor DNA laboratories, located in Texas. It is written in French. “We only report in English,” the company responded by email to Soleil.

Mr. Mounir admitted in February in court in the Magdalen Islands, under oath, to having no family ties with Ms. Albert.

In an interview, Mr. Lord Mounir claims to have no memory of the announcement made to employees nor of having claimed to be Lynn Albert’s half-brother. He sent us another DNA test carried out by a Quebec laboratory – Orchid PRO-DNA – which concluded in its report dated October 17, 2024 that there was no genetic link between these two people.

Araynes

At LRDI, the presence of Alain Lord Mounir was felt, among other things, by the packaging that was designed internally for Apéri-Fruits. “Araynes Seafood is a leading exporter of live lobster, scallops, snow crab, processed lobster and halibut,” one of them read. It also indicated that the product was “distributed by: Araynes” and the address appearing there was the same as LRDI in the Magdalen Islands.

The company does not appear anywhere in the Quebec business register or in the trademark register. “Araynes” would ultimately have been just a name on packaging, as this ex-LRDI employee testifies. “I worked on packaging for a whole winter. There were some inaccurate things, like saying that it was the biggest exporter on the islands.”

In an interview, Mr. Lord Mounir informs that Araynes no longer exists since the bankruptcy of LA Renaissance des Îles.

On the website of a company of which he also claims ownership, Imperial Seafood, Mr. Lord Mounir presented the genesis of Araynes as follows: “When I decided to create Araynes, it was a period of great change in the lobster and crab industry.”

The website was changed shortly after our first attempts to contact Mr. Mounir in early December.

A shock wave

The bankruptcy of LRDI caused a real shock wave in the Magdalen Islands. Among the 343 creditors, there are several local businesses that found themselves in dire straits, including a travel agency with a shortfall of more than $80,000, but also distribution, telecommunications and construction, grocery stores, convenience stores.

Added to this are some 80 lobster, crab and bait fishermen to whom the company owes 3.7 million.