In the past, defendant Covenant Group Ltd. ("Covenant") was a company that placed temporary and permanent workers with employers in Ontario. The plaintiff, Santina Calisto, used to work for Covenant. On September 28, 2022, someone established a domain name similar to Covenant's legitimate domain and used Ms. Calisto's work email to direct one of Covenant's clients to send a payment of $108,198.09 to an alternate bank account with the Royal Bank of Canada ("RBC"), which was not associated with Covenant.
Ms. Calisto denied any involvement in this incident, and as she was suing Covenant for wrongful dismissal, they brought a motion seeking information about the account holder of the "Account" and obtained a mareva injunction to freeze the funds in that account.
On March 27, 2023, the court issued a Norwich Order directing RBC to provide information about the account holder. Covenant then sought interim recovery of the funds held in the Account and another account where some funds were transferred.
The sole issue before the court was whether Covenant had met the test for interim recovery of personal property. The court found that Covenant satisfied the test as the payment was intended for them, and there was evidence that the funds were unlawfully diverted to an account not held by Covenant.
The court exercised its discretion to grant the Order for interim recovery of personal property. There was substantial evidence supporting Covenant's claim, and the court was assured that Covenant would likely succeed at trial.