![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ricova.jpg\")
In his testimony in the lower court proceedings, Ricova president and CEO Dominic Colubriale said Montreal was told the company would go out of business if it stayed in the contract. (J\u00e9r\u00f4me Labb\u00e9\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\nQuebec’s Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s decision requiring the City of Montreal to reimburse $1 million to recycling company Ricova\u00a0after the company failed to fulfill its contract with the borough of C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2014Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce (CDN-NDG) in 2017.<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal’s ruling on Wednesday centers on penalties the city imposed on the recycling giant for ending its contract to collect waste in the borough.<\/p>\n
Ricova Services Inc.\u00a0obtained the contract after the city put out a call for tenders with incorrect data about the work that needed to be done\u00a0\u2014 information that was soon after corrected but contributed to Ricova’s inability to hold up its end of the agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ricova filed a lawsuit in 2019, seeking reimbursement in the amount of $1,014,903\u00a0for penalties it claimed were “unlawfully collected” by the city after the company ended its agreement due to an inability to fulfill its obligations.<\/p>\n
A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in 2024 that Montreal must reimburse Ricova\u00a0because it had led the recycling company to think it would be released from its obligations once a new contract was awarded to a third-party company.<\/p>\n
In his testimony in the lower court proceedings, Ricova president and CEO\u00a0Dominic Colubriale said Montreal was told the company would go out of business if it stayed in the contract.<\/p>\n
“The option to continue the contract\u00a0wasn’t really an option, because number one, we didn’t have the trucks. Number two, we were going to go out of business,” Colubriale said.<\/p>\n
Ricova terminated the agreement in 2018, citing losses\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shortly after the city launched a call for tenders on March 27, 2017, it noticed that it had incorrectly entered only half of the average number of loads, doors and trucks in CDN-NDG\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b, the ruling says. The city corrected the mistake on March 30.<\/p>\n
However, Sansfa\u00e7on found that Ricova placed a bid on a contract with the borough and calculated its pricing without taking into account the corrections.<\/p>\n
Ricova first struggled to meet demands in the borough\u00a0in December 2017.<\/p>\n
The multinational company based on Montreal’s South Shore drew ire for allowing recycling to pile up for weeks while having a contract to collect household waste and compost with many Montreal boroughs.<\/p>\n
In his testimony in the lower court proceedings, Ricova president and CEO Dominic Colubriale said Montreal was told the company would go out of business if it stayed in the contract. (J\u00e9r\u00f4me Labb\u00e9\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n
By February 2018, the company submitted to Montreal a notice of termination of the agreement, citing a “considerable loss of revenue.”<\/p>\n
“It is difficult for an SME\u00a0(Small to Medium-sized Enterprise)\u00a0to be able to endure such considerable losses in the long term,” an excerpt of the notice reads. “We would certainly have liked to continue our services in the —\u00a0borough had it not been for these losses.”<\/p>\n