A chain of discount gas stations in Ontario known as Gen7Fuel is at the centre of a “corporate divorce” involving allegations of an outstanding $35-million tax bill and an improperly acquired yacht dubbed the Cuz We Can.
A statement of claim alleging “misappropriation of funds, assets and opportunities” was filed last month in Toronto’s Ontario Superior Court by two brothers from the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve. Miles Hill and Scott Hill allege that their 20-year business partnership with Waterdown, Ont.’s Glenn Page came crashing down this summer after he, and some of his family members and associates, took control of their fuel-venture businesses.
The claim, which has not been proven in court, alleges that the brothers recently discovered that more than $5-million in corporate funds were misused for “personal expenses including vacations.” And it is alleged that the unapproved purchases involved about $1-million in charter flights and the US$3.6-million acquisition of a yacht.
The siblings say Mr. Page and others are behind these purchases and that, ultimately, he was an outsider to whom they had entrusted too much control. “From 2017 until July of 2022, Glenn Page had de facto exclusive control over all aspects of those businesses,” the lawsuit says.
The brothers and their companies face millions of dollars in taxes. According to the lawsuit, the Ontario Ministry of Finance said in August that the fuel companies are behind on payments, and that this “alleged liability for taxes collected but not remitted” exceeds $35-million.
The ministry said in an e-mailed statement to The Globe that it “cannot comment on any matter, which, in any way, could breach confidential taxpayer information.”
Mr. Page this week denied the accusations in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “It’s a lot of allegations and we categorically deny them,” he said. He will file defence documents in court in the coming days, he said. “I have worked with the Hills for some 20 years. It was a very sudden and abrupt corporate divorce, so to speak.”
The claim speaks to a series of interconnected fuel ventures, the more prominent of them being nine Gen7Fuel-branded gas stations.
Since 2019, these retailers have popped up on Indigenous reserves along stretches of Ontario’s highways from Sarnia to Sault Ste Marie. “We offer more competitive pricing than non-native suppliers while keeping quality at a high standard,” reads the Gen7Fuel website.
The statement of claim says that the three business partners first began working together constructively in the 2000s on tobacco-related ventures. In 2010, when Miles Hill “experienced stressful difficulties and disputes with cigarette excise-tax authorities,” Mr. Page was “instrumental” in resolving disputes, the suit says.
Five years ago, the business partners started a fuel-blending and importation business known as Original Traders Energy. A few years ago, they agreed to spin out the Gen7Fuel brand as a nod to Indigenous values.
“As members of the Six Nations of Grand River Territory, Scott Hill and Miles Hill embrace the Haudenosaunee belief that decisions must be carefully considered regarding the next seven generations,” the suit says.
It also says that interruptions wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed a growing tempo of business irregularities that came to the surface this year.
This summer, the lawsuit says, Mr. Page announced he was retiring to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Meantime, the brothers discovered that their corporate accounts had been hit by “millions of dollars of suspicious wire transfers.”
The statement of claim says that the Hill brothers never had any real involvement in running the Gen7Fuel gas stations. The suit names the owners of these businesses as “John Doe” defendants hailing from other First Nations.
“The Indigenous participants own a majority interest in each business in return for contributing their land,” the statement of claim says. “Glenn Page and Mandy Cox own up to a 49-per-cent beneficial interest, but have complete financial and management control over all key aspects of the business.”
Ms. Cox, also a defendant in the lawsuit, is Mr. Page’s wife. The suit alleges that she was brought in as an employee and signed off on some of the contentious wire transfers. (Her lawyer, Jessica Orkin, would not comment on the case.)
Mr. Page says that he does not own much of the Gen7Fuel companies. “I am an extremely minor, minor part from an investment perspective,” he said in the interview.
Asked about the purchase of the private-jet flights and yacht, he said that “all of the facts about that will be issued to the court shortly.”
The statement of claim for the Hill brothers was filed by Toronto lawyers Martin Henderson and Hansen Wong. The two lawyers could not be reached for comment.
Colin Freeze