A court hearing over Hudson’s Bay’s last-ditch restructuring plans quickly ended up getting NSFW.
As reported by The Star, the public Zoom call for the Wednesday hearing was interrupted within the first hour by multiple windows containing pornographic videos.
It took about 15 seconds for the videos to be removed. Ontario Superior Court Justice Peter Osborne then ordered the Zoom link to be closed off to anyone who wasn’t one of the parties involved with the proceeding. It’s unclear who started the porn playback.
Even without the porn videos, though, Hudson’s Bay has been in a really sticky situation. Earlier this month, the company began liquidating all but six of its stores after filing for creditor protection over being nearly $1 billion in debt.
The company is proposing a restructuring plan that keeps the six remaining stores thanks to senior secured lenders Bank of America, Pathlight Capital and Restore Capital. However, Hudson’s Bay must have a plan in place by April 7 to avoid being required to liquidate the final six stores.
All the while, the company won’t be paying severance to the thousands of workers who will be losing their jobs, despite up to $3 million in bonuses going towards 121 managers and executives.
Canadian Labour Congress, Canada’s national trade union centre, deemed the lack of severance for employees “incredibly egregious” and called for some of that $3 million to go towards all affected workers.
