An Ontario court on Thursday approved a three-month extension protecting

Hudson’s Bay Co. ULC

from its creditors.

Judge Jessica Kimmel pushed the end of the stay period, a court order that suspends any further legal proceedings, to June 30, reported Canadian Press. Before the extension, the collapsed retailer’s reprieve was set to expire on March 31, more than a year after Hudson’s Bay (HBC) first sought creditor protection for about $1 billion owed in debt.

HBC has requested extensions to the stay period several times.

Court documents said the extension would assist with auctions of the company’s remaining art and artifacts and complete the distribution of hardship funds to former employees, among other things, including “pension surplus matters as applicable.”

HBC boasted a collection of more than 1,700 pieces of art and more than 2,700 artifacts that “reflect the rich heritage and cultural legacy of the company,”

it said

in a court document from April 2025.

In February 2026, an Ontario court approved the creation of a $250,000 hardship fund for former HBC employees and retirees, tapping into a $9.9 million Zellers trust and about $1.6 million in Manulife reserves.

There has been a long-running dispute between HBC and former employees of the defunct department store chain, Simpsons, over HBC’s Dumai Pension Plan.

The Dumai Pension Plan, originally created for former employees of Simpsons, was taken over by HBC when it acquired Simpsons in 1979, and was later expanded to include certain Zellers and Kmart employees.

However, a lawsuit brought forward in the 2000s by previous Simpsons employees claimed HBC diverted about $111 million in assets from the original Simpsons plan toward funding the new separate defined contribution plan for Zellers and Kmart employees.

In 2007, a judge ruled that HBC could use the pension plan surplus to pay its obligations to the broader defined contribution group while the plan remained active but also held that former Simpsons employees would be entitled to any remaining surplus assets if the plan was ever wound up.

In 2011, an Ontario court dismissed a cross-appeal from HBC, ruling the plan documents established “an irrevocable trust, over all of the assets in the pension trust fund, for the exclusive benefit of the employees.”

After HBC filed for

bankruptcy

last year, a class-action application was filed by Koskie Minsky LLP in June on behalf of workers who participated in the Simpsons pension plan, The Canadian Press reported.

The filing reportedly noted that as of Jan. 1, 2024, there was about $167.03 million in a trust fund linked to HBC’s overall plan, citing annual pension statement reports sent from HBC to Simpsons workers.

HBC lawyer Ashley Taylor of Stikeman Elliott LLP, and the court-appointed monitor Alvarez & Marsal Holdings, LLC did not respond to requests for comment.

• Email: slouis@postmedia.com

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