Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether the transfer of 50 shares in G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. from a judgment debtor to his daughter constituted a fraudulent conveyance under the Statute of Elizabeth
• Adequacy and credibility of the affidavit evidence, including the bank’s documentary exhibits and the daughter’s uncorroborated claim of substantial past loans
• Significance of “badges of fraud,” such as suspicious timing, intra-family transfer, lack of documentation, and inconsistent prior statements about debts and income
• Application of the rule that parties must put their “best evidentiary foot forward” in summary applications and the adverse inference drawn from the debtor’s failure to file an affidavit
• Operation of the Statute of Elizabeth test (conveyance, lack of consideration, intent to defraud, creditor status, and actual hindrance) and the shifting onus once those elements are prima facie met
• Determination of remedy and costs, including setting aside the share transfer, directing dividends to the Sheriff, and awarding fixed costs against both respondents

Background and parties

Royal Bank of Canada obtained a money judgment in 2018 against Timothy Mickel for $31,716.13. Following that judgment, the bank pursued post-judgment enforcement. The key asset identified was a 25% mineral rights royalty interest held through G.A.M. Holdings Ltd., a holding company that paid dividends to Mickel as a shareholder. The bank instructed the Sheriff to collect against this stream of income and to seize Mickel’s shares in G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. As enforcement proceeded, a disputed transfer of shares from Mickel to his daughter, Bailee Grace Mickel, became the focus of the litigation.

Facts of the case

After judgment was entered in July 2018, Mickel swore a Property Statement in October 2018 listing virtually no realizable assets beyond modest household goods, a vehicle and a small bank balance. Despite this, G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. was paying him regular dividends tied to mineral royalties. By November 2018 the bank had instructed the Sheriff to pursue collection from this corporate source.
In early 2024, G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. continued paying dividends to Mickel, and the Sheriff served a Notice of Seizure of Account in January 2024 to attach his shares in the company. Over the months that followed, the company paid several dividends, and there is evidence that Mickel as president deliberately kept one May 2024 dividend cheque below the exemption threshold, despite being entitled to a larger amount, thereby limiting the Sheriff’s recovery.
As of May 24, 2024, the judgment balance, including Sheriff’s fees, had risen to $40,999.19. In a handwritten note to the bank dated June 5, 2024, Mickel acknowledged the judgment debt and his dividend income, and referred to his shares as being in a trust aware of his debt to the bank.
On June 14, 2024, a unanimous resolution of the directors and shareholders of G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. transferred 50 Class A shares from Mickel to his daughter Bailee. Less than a month later, on July 8, 2024, Mickel told the Sheriff he had transferred the shares, and on July 15 he indicated that Bailee had paid $50 for them. The shares generated the dividend income that enforcement authorities were attempting to reach.
In July 2025, Bailee swore an affidavit asserting a very different characterization of the transaction. She claimed that the transfer of shares was not a nominal sale for $50 but repayment of substantial loans she had extended to her father between 2018 and 2025, totaling $82,935.88, plus approximately $49,666 in student loans that he had promised to pay on her behalf. She attached records of e-transfers said to represent those advances. Around the same period, her own student loan records showed that she was borrowing funds and receiving provincial grants and later entered repayment with a sizeable outstanding balance.

The bank’s fraudulent conveyance application

The bank commenced an originating application in September 2025 under the Fraudulent Conveyances Act, 1571 (UK), 13 Eliz 1, c 5, commonly known as the Statute of Elizabeth. It sought an order declaring the June 2024 transfer of 50 Class A shares from Timothy Mickel to Bailee Grace Mickel to be a fraudulent conveyance intended to hinder or defeat the bank’s rights as a judgment creditor.
The bank also requested consequential relief to unwind the transaction in practical terms: that the transfer be declared void, that Bailee be compelled to surrender the shares to the Sheriff, and that any dividend income arising from those shares be remitted to the Sheriff rather than to Bailee. The application was heard in November 2025, with reasons delivered by Robertson J. on December 23, 2025.

Evidence before the court

The evidentiary record was confined to two affidavits. On behalf of the bank, counsel James Kroczynski provided an affidavit assembling key documents: the 2018 judgment, the debtor’s property statement, correspondence between counsel, Sheriff’s enforcement records, corporate resolutions and dividend records from G.A.M. Holdings Ltd., and Mickel’s handwritten note acknowledging the judgment and his dividend income. Some of this evidence contained hearsay statements from Mickel, but the court accepted them as admissible statements against interest, particularly given that Mickel chose not to file his own affidavit contradicting them.
On behalf of the respondents, only Bailee filed evidence. In her affidavit she described a long-standing pattern of financial support to her father, allegedly documented through a series of e-transfers that she said were loans. She also claimed that the transfer of the shares was intended as repayment of those accumulated debts and of student loans that her father had promised to assume. No written loan agreements, promissory notes, or contemporaneous acknowledgements of indebtedness were produced.
The court emphasized that in summary applications of this nature, parties must put their “best evidentiary foot forward.” The absence of any affidavit from the debtor, who was at the center of the impugned transaction, was critical. The judge drew an adverse inference from his silence, particularly in light of multiple prior written statements from him that did not mention any debt owing to Bailee, but did acknowledge the bank’s judgment and his own limited income.

Credibility assessment and badges of fraud

In analyzing Bailee’s version of events, the court identified several “badges of fraud” that cumulatively undermined the credibility of her claim that the share transfer was bona fide repayment of a genuine debt.
First, the timing of Bailee’s affidavit and the share transfer coincided with intensifying enforcement action by the Sheriff. The share transfer on June 14, 2024, occurred after the Sheriff had served a Notice of Seizure in January 2024 and had attempted to intercept dividends in the months that followed. Bailee’s affidavit asserting the loan theory was sworn in July 2025, at a point when it was apparent that the bank might challenge the transaction.
Second, there was no written loan agreement or other obvious contemporaneous documentation describing the alleged advances as loans. The e-transfer records, while showing movement of money, were equally consistent with gifts or other unexplained intra-family transfers and did not, on their face, prove a legally enforceable obligation.
Third, Bailee’s claim that she had advanced over $80,000 to her father conflicted sharply with his prior statements. In his Property Statement, Mickel did not list Bailee (or any family member) as a creditor, despite listing other debts. He wrote to the bank that he had no income beyond disability benefits and dividends and told the Sheriff he had no funds, even though, if Bailee’s evidence were accurate, he had received $1,000 from her the day before.
Fourth, Bailee’s own financial position raised doubts. Her student loan records showed significant borrowing and provincial grants for the very period in which she claimed to be regularly advancing large sums to her father, suggesting she may not have had the financial capacity to fund such extensive loans while simultaneously relying on student aid.
Finally, the court highlighted the stark inconsistency between Bailee’s assertion that the shares were exchanged for repayment of over $120,000 in debts and the debtor’s own statement to the Sheriff that she had paid only $50 for the shares. This inconsistency was treated as particularly damaging to the credibility of the alleged loan explanation.

Legal framework under the Statute of Elizabeth

The decision situates the dispute within a long line of Saskatchewan authority applying the centuries-old Statute of Elizabeth to set aside fraudulent conveyances. The statute is aimed at defeating “feigned, covinous and fraudulent” transfers designed to delay, hinder or defraud creditors. The court reviewed Saskatchewan case law confirming that the Statute of Elizabeth remains in force, operates alongside provincial fraudulent preference legislation, and is to be interpreted purposively to suppress fraud in debtor–creditor relations.
Following earlier decisions such as Moody v Ashton, BTA Real Estate Group Inc. v Family Fitness Inc., and Meng v Wang, the court adopted a five-part analytical framework from Palechuk v Fahrlander for establishing a fraudulent conveyance under the Statute of Elizabeth:
there must be a conveyance of real or personal property
the conveyance must be for no or nominal consideration
the transfer must be made with intent to defraud, delay or hinder creditors
the party challenging the conveyance must have been a creditor or have a legal or equitable claim at the time of the transfer
and the conveyance must in fact have had the intended effect of hindering or delaying the creditor’s recovery
The decision also emphasizes the concept of a shifting evidentiary onus. Once a creditor demonstrates a voluntary conveyance in suspicious circumstances, particularly between related parties, and shows that the natural consequence of the transfer is to defeat creditors, a presumption of fraudulent intent can arise. At that point, the evidentiary burden moves to the transferee (here, Bailee) to show that the transaction was bona fide and supported by real consideration. If no cogent, credible contrary evidence is presented, the presumption remains and the court may find fraudulent intent on a balance of probabilities.

Court’s analysis and determination

Applying this framework, Robertson J. found that all five elements of a fraudulent conveyance were satisfied. The 50 Class A shares in G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. were personal property. The evidence from the debtor to the Sheriff that Bailee paid $50 for them established that they were transferred for clearly nominal consideration relative to their income-producing value. The fact that the transfer followed immediately on the Sheriff’s seizure of the debtor’s interest in the company and diverted dividends away from enforcement efforts supported an inference that the transaction was intended to frustrate the bank’s judgment collection.
The bank was indisputably a creditor at the time of the transfer, having obtained judgment in 2018 and having actively pursued enforcement since 2024. The transaction had the real effect of delaying or potentially defeating the Sheriff’s ability to collect, since dividends and beneficial ownership were moved to a family member not directly subject to the original judgment.
Because these elements were proven, the onus shifted to Bailee to justify the transfer as a legitimate repayment of debt. The court held that she failed to discharge that burden. Her affidavit was not corroborated by independent documentation of loan terms, did not align with the debtor’s earlier written statements to the bank and the Sheriff, and conflicted with the financial reality of her own borrowing for studies. In addition, longstanding principles cautioning against accepting uncorroborated evidence in suspicious intra-family transactions weighed against her.
The judge concluded that the purported loan explanation “did not pass the smell test” and that the transfer was a fraudulent conveyance made to defeat the bank’s collection rights. The court therefore rejected the respondents’ justification and accepted the bank’s case under the Statute of Elizabeth.

Outcome and monetary orders

Having found that the share transfer was a fraudulent conveyance, the court granted comprehensive remedial relief. It declared that the transfer of the 50 Class A shares from Timothy Mickel to Bailee Grace Mickel was void as against the bank and its enforcement efforts. Bailee was ordered to surrender the shares to the Sheriff, and both she and Timothy were directed to execute any further documents needed to restore legal and beneficial ownership of the shares to Timothy so that the Sheriff could effectively realize on them.
The court also addressed dividend income. It ordered Bailee to remit any dividend income she had already received from the G.A.M. Holdings Ltd. shares to the Sheriff and provided that all future payments arising from those shares must be made directly to the Sheriff. These orders are designed to ensure that the stream of dividends from the mineral rights royalty interest is available to satisfy the existing judgment debt, which had grown with fees over time, though the judgment itself and the accumulating enforcement amounts predated this particular decision.
On costs, the court held that the bank, having succeeded in its application, was entitled to a fixed award. It ordered Timothy and Bailee Mickel, jointly or severally, to pay costs of $1,500 forthwith to the Royal Bank of Canada. The underlying 2018 judgment amount and the balance with Sheriff’s fees were not recalculated or newly awarded in this decision; rather, this ruling cleared the way for enforcement against the shares and related dividends. Accordingly, the successful party is the Royal Bank of Canada, and the only new quantified monetary award made in its favour in this decision is $1,500 in costs, while the total recoverable value from the shares and future dividends cannot be precisely determined from the judgment itself.