Class Action Request | Bombardier and its named senior executives

Bombardier, its President and Chief Executive Officer Éric Martel, Chairman of the Board Pierre Beaudoin and former President and Chief Executive Officer Alain Bellemare are the subject of an application for authorization to institute a class action. The amount claimed could reach 170 million.

According to the request obtained by The Pressat least 22 employees have been fooled by Bombardier and its Restricted Share Unit Plan (RSU).

The RSUs in question entitle the holder to receive Bombardier Class B shares or a cash payment equivalent to the value of the RSUs, on a predetermined vesting date. This financial incentive was aimed at “retaining managers and other key employees who particularly contribute to creating economic value”, reports the request led by lawyer Jean-Philippe Caron of the Calex firm.

So far, 22 people involved in this case have been identified. These received a total of 5,000,009 RSUs in November 2020, specifies the motion filed in Superior Court on Friday. But in total, there are 2,289,785 RSUs outstanding.

However, two months earlier, on September 16, 2020, Bombardier and Alstom had signed an agreement under which Alstom would buy all of the shares of Bombardier Transportation. In January, the transaction was formalized and the employees were transferred to Alstom.

Five days after their transfer, Bombardier employees received an email from the human resources department informing them, according to the request, that their participation in the RSU Plan was terminated, retroactive to the date of the sale of the division. Transportation to Alstom. In addition, they were told, the value of their RSUs would be reduced. For what ? Because they were no longer employed by Bombardier.

“It is clear that Beaudoin, Martel and Bellemare knew that the members had no expectation of converting the total number of RSUs granted, due to their interpretation of the impact of a sale of assets on the plan and the grant agreement”, writes the Calex firm.

13 million for 22 persounds

In short, the 22 current members of the class action have only accumulated 8% of the RSUs granted, which totals “a total shortfall of nearly $13,000,000”, calculate the lawyers in the file. “Everything suggests that the grants [d’UAI aux employés] aimed to keep them hooked and to motivate them to give their all in the context of said transaction.

According to the motion, Bombardier considers that its employees “would have been terminated without just cause, which allegedly led to the termination of the employment relationship and therefore to an early vesting of certain RSUs and expiry of another tranche of RSUs”.

M^e Caron argues instead that the employment contracts remained in effect.

The court application recalls that Bombardier sold the C Series project, the CRJ and Q Series aircraft, its Aerostructures and Transportation divisions over the years due to severe financial problems. This would have increased the number of permanent full-time employees from 57,854 to 13,259, between 2018 and 2021. The employees affected by this case could therefore be quite numerous, but their number is unknown at this time.

The group’s representative, Jérôme Gauthier, started working for Bombardier in 1996. He held various positions within the finance department, even after the sale of the Transport division to Alstom. In November 2020, he had obtained 83,334 RSUs, the vesting date of which was to be November 10, 2023.

“Using the value of a Bombardier Class B share as of the date hereof, which is approximately $70.00, Mr. Gauthier would be entitled to obtain a total sum of $233,335”, states the motion. .

Calex wants the Court to order Bombardier to pay damages as well as punitive and exemplary damages to the members of the class.