A BC Supreme Court judge has ordered defendants in a dispute over Vanderhoof hay exports to China to hand over email and documents to the plaintiffs.
At a March 6 hearing, Judd Ying Yu Wu, Jessica Ju Ying Wu and Alfalfa Holdings Ltd. appealed an associate judge’s denial of their request for TopHay Leo Farms Ltd., TopHay Agri-Industries Inc., Yi Ding and others to produce certain documents.
The Wus allege that, in 2019, they were forcibly removed from the business by the defendants.
Justice Anita Chan decided March 31 that the defendants must disclose, within 30 days, four emails about a 2021 MNP valuation report and all documents in which the defendants and their shareholders used valuation or appraisals for financing or business transactions.
Judd Wu and Yi were originally business partners when they incorporated TopHay Agri-Industries in 2012 and each contributed a US$1.55 million shareholder loan, said Chan’s written judgment. TopHay-Agri bought a 76-acre farm in Vanderhoof and built facilities to produce and export hay.
Wu and his wife, Jessica Ju Ying Wu, moved to Vanderhoof.
He managed the day-to-day business and she was bookkeeper and office administrator. Yi established Xiamen TopHay Import and Export Company to market and sell TopHay-Agri’s hay in China.
Other investors became shareholders from 2013 to 2015 and 8,000 acres of farmland in Vanderhoof were acquired. TopHay-Agri became a wholly owned subsidiary of TopHay Leo. Under a 2016 shareholders’ agreement, Judd Wu and Yi Ding became two of the three directors of TopHay Leo. TopHay-Agri and Driscoll Brands LLC of Idaho entered a joint venture to export hay to China in 2017.
But, in September 2018, Yi allegedly began a hostile takeover of TopHay-Agri, removing Judd Wu as a director and firing the Wus.
The defendants sued the plaintiffs in May 2019, accusing them of breaches of fiduciary, statutory and common law duties as a company director and officer. The plaintiffs sued in October 2019 for alleged conspiracy, shareholder oppression and wrongful dismissal. Both actions are to be tried together.
