One more step has been taken in the legal battle between the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ) and the controversial businessman Benoît Laliberté. The Court of Appeal recently ruled in favor of the guardian of arable land who, for four years, has been trying to dismantle cryptocurrency mining facilities installed without authorization on good quality agricultural land.
With its decision, the Court of Appeal refuses to the controversial businessman a request that would have had the effect of slowing down the steps taken by the CPTAQ. The organization is trying to approve before a court an initial decision ordering the dismantling of computer infrastructures in agricultural territory.
However, the legal saga is not over. In interview with The duty, Benoît Laliberté persists and signs his desire to undermine cryptocurrencies: “We have a whole range of arguments to put forward. Then after that [si le jugement nous est défavorable]we have all kinds of remedies, including an appeal as of right [de la décision]. »
Even if that portion which is linked to our domes [infrastructures qui servent au minage de cryptomonnaies] is not agriculture in the proper sense, we see it as an accessory heating system for our greenhouses which must be built.
His mining infrastructure, he argues, is part of a larger project that would be agricultural in nature. Ultimately, the heat from his facilities should heat tomato greenhouses, he says: “Even if this portion that is linked to our domes [infrastructures qui servent au minage de cryptomonnaies] is not agriculture in the proper sense, we see it as an accessory heating system for our greenhouses which must be built. »
However, four years after the start of the project, he concedes that the greenhouses have still not been installed, indicating that he ordered them almost “two and a half years” ago.
Asked about the possibility of having to dismantle his facilities if the decision was ultimately unfavorable to him, Mr. Laliberté was confident. “We are sure that we will find a solution in good faith with the CPTAQ to use the heat from our equipment to cultivate,” he said. During the proceedings, he intends to continue activities on the land.
Benoît Laliberté is an entrepreneur who has had his share of controversy. In the 2000s, the bankruptcy of his computer company, Jitec, was widely publicized. In 2008, he was convicted of 41 securities law offenses for manipulating Jitec’s stock. Last November, The Press published an investigation revealing, among other things, that the governments of Quebec and Canada were claiming more than $55 million from him for unpaid taxes, duties and fines. And in recent weeks, Radio-Canada recounted its setbacks with the CPTAQ.
Cryptocurrencies in farmland
This new saga began a few years ago, when a company owned by Benoît Laliberté began building “computer server domes” on agricultural land located in Sainte-Marie-Madeleine without obtaining authorization from the CPTAQ. As early as 2018, the municipality noticed that electrical connection and excavation work had been carried out without a permit, and a notice of violation was then issued.
“This work aimed to allow the installation, inside a dome that had previously served as a horse riding school, of approximately 1000 computer modules used to perform calculations and used in cryptocurrency mining operations”, is- it detailed in the CPTAQ order which dates back to 2018.
The following year, while the case was before the courts, Benoît Laliberté sold his facilities for a million dollars to a company he managed: the Blockchain Data Centers. Registered in Toronto, the latter is partly owned by United American Corp, a Florida company specializing in cryptocurrency mining.
Since then, Blockchain Data Centers has redefined itself as a greenhouse business, now known by two names: Agricultural Thermal Power Corporation of Canada and AgroDomes. “We consider doing agricultural activities,” says Mr. Laliberté.
The absence of greenhouses has not prevented computer servers from running at full speed in recent years. To ensure the electricity supply, the company’s monthly bill reached $350,000, according to court documents. The 12.3 MW block allocated to it represents almost all of the volume intended for blockchain activities (12.9 MW) of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Rouville regional electricity network.
From 2020, Benoît Laliberté’s project nevertheless begins to falter. The contractor Emco, who carried out construction work on the site, sends him a legal mortgage, followed by a notice of exercise of sale under judicial control.
In the fall of the same year, the Coopérative régionale d’electricite de Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville sent him a notice of interruption of service because the unpaid sums reached nearly $285,000, according to court documents.
Benoît Laliberté concedes “moving forward with several headwinds”, which he repeatedly qualifies as “political” during the interview with The duty. Regarding the CPTAQ’s 2018 violation notice, he says: “it was ‘canned’, it was a job of arms”. Heating greenhouses by the business of the heat created by cryptocurrency mining systems is “relatively innovative and new”, he notes, adding “that there is no case law” on this effect: “We simply did what we thought was best. »