In Cantak Corporation v Haderer, 2026 ABKB 93 (Marion J), the Alberta Court of King’s Bench granted a statutory attachment order and a Mareva injunction against a former senior employee and his common-law partner, finding a strong prima facie case of civil bribery and breach of fiduciary duty.
This case is important because it confirms two things: a senior employee who controls purchasing decisions could be a fiduciary, and routing kickback payments through a romantic partner will not insulate the wrongdoer from liability.
Facts
The following were the pertinent facts as found by Justice Marion:
- Haderer was employed by Cantak Corporation, an Alberta oil country tubular goods (OCTG) supplier, from 1990 to 2022. From 2011 to 2022 he served as General Manager, Operations of the OCTG division, earning between $245,000 and $486,000 per year
- Haderer had unilateral authority to approve OCTG pipe purchases without monetary limit, provided they filled an existing customer order. He ran the division with minimal executive oversight and his procurement decisions were rarely questioned
- In 2016, Haderer began directing Cantak’s purchases to BRC, a new pipe distributor started by his close friend Mr. Roychowdhury. He arranged for BRC to be added as a Cantak vendor and wrote BRC a false reference letter on Cantak letterhead calling it a “major supplier” before any significant business relationship existed
- Haderer arranged for his common-law partner, Ms. Sandeman, to be hired by BRC at a base salary of $31,200 per year, and was directly involved in drafting her employment letter. Sandeman had no oil and gas or OCTG experience
- Sandeman was also appointed a director of BRC Tubular solely to satisfy Alberta’s then-applicable Canadian residency requirement for directors. She admitted under oath she did nothing in the role beyond being listed
- From 2016 to 2022, BRC paid Sandeman over $3.5 million in T4 income, including over $1 million in 2019 alone. The payments were irregular, undocumented, and set entirely at Roychowdhury’s discretion. Sandeman could not explain how the amounts were calculated
- Cantak was never told about Sandeman’s director role, what she was paid, or that her compensation was tied to BRC’s revenues from Cantak. Over the same period, BRC grew from 11% to 60% of Cantak’s total OCTG purchases
- In 2021, BRC failed to deliver pipe worth US$6.39 million. During Cantak’s investigation, a text message surfaced in which Haderer told a friend that Roychowdhury “owes me $1 million.” Haderer never provided an adequate explanation for this
- On December 8, 2022, Haderer was called to a meeting with Cantak’s counsel. He admitted to being dishonest about Sandeman’s income and walked out mid-meeting. His employment was terminated that day
- Cantak sued its employee Haderer, along with Sandeman and others
- After the Statement of Claim was filed, Sandeman closed a bank account, transferred funds to a new account, and held a $222,000 bank draft to avoid assets being frozen. Neither defendant earned material income after December 2022, yet their non-legal spending averaged approximately $19,300 per month
Analysis / Conclusion
Justice Marion found a strong prima facie case of civil bribery against Haderer. The central question was whether payments made to Sandeman, rather than to Haderer directly, could constitute a bribe. The Court confirmed they could. The legal test asks whether the payment creates a realistic prospect of conflict of interest, and is not restricted to who is the direct recipient of it. Because Sandeman’s compensation was tied to BRC’s revenues from Cantak, it placed Haderer in a direct conflict of interest every time he made a procurement decision on behalf of his employer. Once bribery is established, an irrebuttable presumption arises that the agent was influenced by it.
The Court also found a strong prima facie case that Haderer was a fiduciary employee. Not every employee qualifies. The test is functional, not based on job title. What mattered here was that Haderer had unilateral authority to select suppliers and commit Cantak to purchases of unlimited value, with little oversight. That combination of discretion and the employer’s resulting vulnerability is what triggers fiduciary status. He then breached that fiduciary duty by directing purchases to BRC while concealing his personal financial interest in BRC’s success.
For Sandeman, the Court found strong prima facie cases of knowing assistance and knowing receipt. Knowing assistance requires actual knowledge, or wilful blindness, of the fiduciary’s breach and participation in it. Knowing receipt requires only constructive knowledge, a lower threshold, because the third party is enriched at the plaintiff’s expense. The Court found Sandeman’s explanation of her payments as legitimate director compensation to be “a sham,” as the amounts bore no relationship to any actual work or genuine directorship function she performed.
Based on these findings, Justice Marion granted both the attachment order under section 17 of the Civil Enforcement Act and the Mareva injunction, freezing the Personal Defendants’ assets pending trial. The restrained amount was capped at $3,312,375. The defendants were permitted to access $25,500 from Haderer’s RRSP for three months of living expenses and $75,000 for legal fees, on an interim basis.
My Take
Haderer spent over three decades building expertise and credibility at Cantak, and it appears he used it to run a side arrangement that enriched him and his partner by millions.
The most important practical employment law point in this case is that fiduciary status is about functional authority, not titles. If an employee has unilateral purchasing power and the employer genuinely relies on their judgment without meaningful checks, that employee is likely a fiduciary. Cantak had a Code of Conduct requiring Haderer to disclose conflicts of interest. The problem was not the rules. It was the absence of any real oversight to catch a violation, which is a problem I see frequently in companies that trust their senior people too completely.
It is also worth noting how this unravelled. It was not a whistleblower or an internal audit. It was a missed pipe delivery worth US$6.39 million. Employers who suspect something is wrong often have more investigative tools available than they realize. This case shows that courts are prepared to grant significant pre-judgment relief, including asset freezes, where the evidence supports it. The key is moving quickly once suspicion arises and preserving evidence of asset dissipation from the start.
Bow River Law provides these regular legal blog articles for the purposes of legal news, education and research for the public and the legal profession. These articles should be considered general information and not legal advice. If you have a legal problem, you should speak to a lawyer directly.
Owen Nicholson is an employment lawyer at Bow River Law in Calgary.
