First Nation community caught in middle of corporate lawsuit
JACQUIE McNISH and JOSH O’KANE
TORONTO and MacTIER, ONT. — The Globe and Mail
Aug. 06 2013
A unique plastics venture on a First Nation reserve near Georgian Bay is slated to be closed this week after being caught in the crossfire of a furious legal battle between a prominent Canadian industrialist and his former company.
“Husky is getting back at me,” said Robert Schad, the 85-year-old founder of Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd., Canada’s largest maker of plastic moulding machines.
Mr. Schad sold Husky in 2007, but he remained chairman of a plastics company called Niigon Technologies Ltd., which he personally financed at the Moose Deer Point First Nation in MacTier, Ont., and stocked with Husky machinery.
Days after he launched a separate plastics venture with an Italian partner in December, 2012, Mr. Schad said Husky told managers at Niigon that it was pulling out the plastic injection machines that the company had lent or leased to the facility years earlier. Husky has sued Mr. Schad and the Italian partner, citing violations of confidentiality agreements in connection with the Niigon operation.
