Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The court considered whether pleadings in a foreign-judgment enforcement action supported certificates of pending litigation registered against two West Vancouver properties.
   
• Justice Branch found that assessing a CPL's validity must account for subsequent court decisions and plaintiff admissions narrowing the original pleading.
   
• Particularity emerged as the central evidentiary issue, since the amended pleading failed to link the allegedly misappropriated funds to the specific properties.
   
• Summary judgment principles under Rule 9-6 governed the separate application to strike the fraudulent conveyance claim.
   
• Speculative allegations, unsupported by discovery evidence, proved insufficient to resist dismissal of that claim.
   
• A request to bar future CPL registrations without court leave was refused despite acknowledged deficiencies in the plaintiffs' litigation conduct.
   

Facts of the case

The plaintiffs, three Chinese investment companies, entered into a Share Purchase Agreement in December 2015 with Liaoning Muchang International Environmental Protection Industry Co. Ltd. (the Company), its majority shareholder Bing Bai, and director/shareholder Yan Ma. A related Supplementary Agreement gave Mr. Bai a guarantee to return the plaintiffs' investment if the Company failed to meet agreed benchmarks. The plaintiffs paid 33.6 million RMB (the Funds) to the Company. In 2018, an investigation into the Company's environmental practices led to arrests, asset freezes, and a court proceeding, and the Company did not return the Funds. The plaintiffs sued Mr. Bai in China and obtained judgments in March 2019 ordering him to return the Funds. On November 13, 2019, the plaintiffs filed a notice of civil claim (NOCC) in the BC Supreme Court seeking, among other relief, enforcement of the Chinese judgments, joint liability against Ms. Ma, and declarations that transfers to Ms. Ma and Mr. Bai's adult son, Mu Qing Bai, were fraudulent conveyances. The same day, the plaintiffs registered certificates of pending litigation (CPLs) against two properties: one at 4870 Vista Place (held 99/100 by Mu Qing and 1/100 by Ms. Ma) and one at 6089 Gleneagles Drive, both in West Vancouver.

Much of the original claim was narrowed over time. A 2022 decision by Justice Marzari (the Stay Decision) stayed several causes of action, including breach of contract and unjust enrichment, on jurisdictional grounds, leaving intact claims including enforcement of the Chinese judgments, joint liability against Ms. Ma, the CPLs, fraudulent conveyance declarations, a declaration on non-dischargeability of the debt in bankruptcy, a tracing order, and costs. The pleadings were subsequently amended multiple times, and in October 2025 Justice Branch ordered the plaintiffs to strike references to a fraudulent preference claim and plead better particulars of the fraudulent conveyance claim (the Strike Order), leading to a Third Amended NOCC filed October 22, 2025. At the hearing, the plaintiffs also admitted that the Funds were received by the Company first and were not paid directly to Mr. Bai or Ms. Ma. Mu Qing Bai and Ms. Ma (the Applicants) brought the present application seeking cancellation of the CPLs, restrictions on future CPL filings, dismissal of the fraudulent conveyance claim against them, and costs.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

Section 215(1) of the Land Title Act (LTA) permits a person claiming an estate or interest in land to register a CPL, and requires the pleading supporting that claim to disclose a claim for an interest in land with a proper factual foundation rather than a bare assertion. The Applicants argued the Third Amended NOCC failed to meet this standard. Separately, the Applicants relied on Rule 9-6(4) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules, which allows an answering party to apply for summary dismissal of a claim where there is no genuine issue for trial. The plaintiffs' claims were also grounded in the Fraudulent Conveyance Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 163, which the Third Amended NOCC invoked to allege that Mr. Bai and Ms. Ma transferred proceeds into British Columbia to acquire and improve residential properties rather than using the funds for their intended purpose in China, thereby defrauding the plaintiffs.

Reasoning and analysis

On the CPL cancellation issue, Justice Branch held that while the general rule from Bilin v. Sidhu is that a CPL's validity is assessed against the pleading in place at the time of filing, this did not preclude accounting for later judicial rulings narrowing that pleading or admissions by the plaintiffs that parts of the original pleading were factually incorrect. Applying this approach, the judge examined the Third Amended NOCC's allegations that funds were used to acquire, preserve, or improve the properties and found them insufficiently particularized. Drawing on an extensive review of authorities—including Wai v. Chung, Agri-Grow Farm Services, Canada Long Investment Group, and 10163563 Manitoba Ltd.—the court concluded that vague assertions connecting misappropriated funds to specific properties, without details such as acquisition dates or mortgage information, cannot establish the necessary nexus to support a CPL. The judge found no basis to distinguish this case from that line of authority and concluded the pleading could not support the CPLs.

On the separate application to strike the fraudulent conveyance claim under Rule 9-6(4), the court applied summary judgment principles requiring the defendant to show no genuine issue of material fact for trial. Ms. Ma and Mr. Bai each denied any conversion of the Funds, and no admissions of fraudulent conveyance appeared in discovery or in the documents produced. The plaintiffs' representative, Yijun Wang, admitted on examination that he had no knowledge or facts supporting the fraudulent conveyance allegations, and the only supporting evidence was an affidavit statement asserting that because the defendants lived in Vancouver, "the only possibility" was that the investment funds were transferred there. The judge found this speculative and insufficient to raise a genuine issue for trial, noting the plaintiffs had years to gather evidence and had not done so. The court also declined to impose a "vexatious litigant"-type order requiring leave before future CPL filings, finding the plaintiffs' conduct—although confused and sloppy—was not egregious enough to justify that remedy.

Ruling and overall outcome

Justice Branch granted the Applicants' application to cancel the CPLs registered against the two West Vancouver properties, finding the Third Amended NOCC failed to satisfy section 215(1) of the LTA, and separately granted the application under Rule 9-6(4) to strike the plaintiffs' fraudulent conveyance claim against Ms. Ma and Mu Qing Bai for want of a genuine issue for trial. The request for an order requiring the plaintiffs to seek leave before registering further CPLs was refused. Costs were not determined in the decision; the judgment instead set a timetable for the parties to file written submissions on costs if they could not reach agreement.