Agra sues former CEO Boddy over apartment rental
Agra sues former CEO Boddy over apartment rental
2022-08-29 20:16 ET - Street Wire
by Mike Caswell
Agra Ventures Ltd., operator of a cannabis greenhouse in Delta, B.C., has filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against its former chief executive officer, Brandon Boddy, over a luxury apartment. The company claims that Mr. Boddy secretly arranged for it to pay the rent on his apartment at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in downtown Vancouver. The payments continued for well over a year after Mr. Boddy left the company, the suit states.
The allegations are contained in a brief notice of claim that Agra filed at the Vancouver courthouse on Aug. 25, 2022. The sole defendant is Mr. Boddy, who served as CEO from May 21, 2019, to March 8, 2021. The case centres around his apartment, described in the lawsuit as being in the Fairmont Pacific Rim, a relatively new apartment and hotel building located near Canada Place.
According to the suit, Mr. Boddy arranged for the company to pay the monthly rent on a suite in the building, amounting to $7,995 per month initially and later $8,114 per month. Agra was not a party to the lease, nor does it have a copy, the suit states. According to the company, Mr. Boddy caused the company to make the monthly payments starting in September, 2019, and did so without the knowledge, consent or approval of the company's board.
Agra claims that Mr. Boddy had guests over at the apartment regularly, including other officers of the company. At all times, he represented that the apartment was his and did not indicate that the company was paying the rent. The company did not conduct business out of the apartment at any time, the suit states.
The payments, as described in the suit, continued even after Mr. Boddy resigned as CEO, apparently without anybody noticing. The money was directly withdrawn from Agra's bank account. The company says that the current CEO realized that Agra was paying Mr. Boddy's rent in August, 2022 (by which time Mr. Boddy had been gone for about 15 months). The CEO immediately stopped the payments.
In legal terms, Agra claims that Mr. Boddy breached his duties by having Agra pay his rent. The apartment was a purely personal expense that was not in the best interests of the company, the suit states. The company also says that the payments amounted to unjust enrichment.
The company is seeking the court-ordered payment of $285,669, plus damages for any other personal expenses that it may discover. The suit further seeks court costs and interest. Vancouver lawyer Malcolm Funt of Bojm, Funt & Gibbons LLP filed the suit on the company's behalf. Mr. Boddy has yet to file a response.
The lawsuit marks the first trouble between Agra and Mr. Boddy. When he resigned on March 8, 2021, the split appeared amicable. Mr. Boddy "warmly welcomed" his replacement, Elise Coppens, and said that the company will be "better positioned for growth and success both in the Canadian and international cannabis marketplaces." The company was also aglow when it appointed Mr. Boddy as CEO about two years prior, on May 21, 2019. It cheered his record as the co-founder of Auxly Cannabis Group Inc., which at one point had a market capitalization of over $1.8-billion.
For Agra shareholders, the company's market capitalization is a far more dismal $520,000. The stock closed at 1.5 cents Monday, far off the 52-week high of $2.29 that it briefly touched after a 1:150 rollback on Aug. 27, 2021.
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