RICOVA challenges before the Superior Court the decision of the City of Montreal to register it in the Register of ineligible businesses

Brossard, June 16, 2022 – Ricova Services requests that the Superior Court rescind the City of Montreal’s Executive Committee decision to register Dominic Colubriale, Ricova Services, Ricova Lachine, Ricova RSC and Ricova International on the City of Montreal’s Ineligible Businesses Register, for a period of five years. The City of Montreal is acting illegally, acting in bad faith and exceeding its authority.

Ricova formally challenges this decision because it is based on the unfounded findings of the Office of the Inspector General (BIG). Contrary to what BIG is implying, Ricova Services has never breached the contractual arrangements between the company and the City. Nor has there ever been any fraudulent or fraudulent action on his part.

The City of Montreal knew very well that the material was sold, at the Quebec market price, to Ricova International. In fact, Ricova International was already buying more than 90% of the recycled materials coming from the sorting centres in Lachine and Saint-Michel, before its operations were taken over by Ricova Services. “When Ricova Services took over operations, it only maintained the practices in force when these centres were managed by the MD Paper Recycling Company and Rebuts Solides Canadiens (RSC) respectively,” said Stephanie Dunglas, Director, Ricova Corporate Communications and External Relations.

The hidden agenda of the City

In July 2020, in the midst of a recycling crisis, Ricova acquired almost all the assets, including the Lachine and Saint-Michel centers, following an authorization from the Superior Court under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act under which RSC and MD were placed.

The City of Montreal knew very well that Ricova International was the main purchaser of the recycled bulk materials produced by the sorting centres in Lachine and Saint-Michel. The City voluntarily chose not to challenge the assignment of the contracts to Ricova before the Court, because it had no valid reason to do so. However, it was unable to implement a $59.6M 10-year, untendered agreement it had negotiated with VIA to take over the Lachine sorting centre. “It’s as if the City has never accepted this,” Dunglas said. This agreement would have cost Montrealers nearly $40 million more than the current contract.

In October 2020, Jean-François Parenteau, then in charge of the file on the executive committee, said, “We have been very clear with Ricova and we will follow them closely.” However, while, from a technical point of view, the managers of day-to-day operations at the sites have indeed had a successful collaboration which made possible some performance improvements in Saint-Michel sorting center, Ricova should point out that several requests for meetings and dialogue regarding Lachine between Ricova Services and the managers of the various departments involved have not been followed up despite repeated requests. ”Representatives and elected officials have always refused to talk to us, although we have the contract in due form. If they had issues to discuss with us about our practices, they could have done so with constructive dialogue. They never really wanted to work with Ricova,” added Dunglas.

Ricova delivered what was promised 

Saint-Michel Sorting Centre
Since 2020, Ricova Services has invested more than $6.5M in new equipment for the Saint-Michel sorting centre, including 5 optical sorters, This reduced the contamination rate of recycled bales from over 35% to 15%. With the latest investments, Ricova Services remains confident that this rate could be reduced to less than 10%.

Since taking over the contracts in August 2020, Ricova has contributed nearly $7M to the City of Montreal, through the sale of recycled materials from the Saint-Michel sorting centre.

Lachine Sorting Centre
“We have tabled a plan for more than $4 million to improve the Lachine sorting centre, which has major design flaws, but the City of Montreal has not acted upon it and continues to threaten to terminate the contract. It is clear that for the City, it is politically more important to attack us than to help us improve the situation.”, said Ms Dunglas.

Had this plan been accepted, the Lachine plant could have been operational to meet expectations by December 2022.

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