The Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, recently ruled against the former CEO and minority shareholder of Burnaby-based Mitchell Press in his attempt to have the commercial printing company liquidated so he could access his ownership stake after being terminated in 2022.
Mitchell Press is a 85-employee, largely unionized print provider that operates out of a 64,000-sq.-ft. printing plant that, according to court records, is located in Burnaby on a valuable property worth more than (C)$20 million. A 2019 Mitchell Press “Sustainability Report” noted it’s the largest commercial heatset web offset printer in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest, outputting on average more than 2 billion publication pages per year.
Despite claiming that he was stuck in “shareholder purgatory” as a minority shareholder, Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird ruled that Daniel Castilloux’s dismissal as CEO was justified, based on the evidence, and that the company’s articles of incorporation forbid it from being sold without approval of the majority shareholder.
Castilloux — who was formerly married to company founder Howard T. Mitchell’s granddaughter — joined the 96-year-old company in 1990 when the business was being run by her father, Howard Mitchell. Castilloux remained with the company, despite eventually getting divorced in 2010, and rose through the ranks serving in various senior-level executive positions, including when Howard Mitchell decided to retire and relinquish control of Mitchell Press to both his son, David Mitchell, and Castilloux.
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