Chinese company forged lawyer's name on immigration applications, B.C. court hears
CTV
A Chinese company that forged its Canadian lawyer's signature on dozens of immigration applications has been ordered to pay the lawyer $400,000 for breaching its contract with him.
A Chinese company that forged its Canadian lawyer's signature on dozens of immigration applications has been ordered to pay the lawyer $400,000 for breaching its contract with him.
The award represents $20,000 for each of 20 applications that were submitted with the forged signature, each of which was successful at securing Canadian residency for the applicant. Five other applications also bore the forged signature.
Ontario lawyer Lihua Bao brought the case against Welltrend United Consulting Inc., Beijing and various people associated with it in B.C. Supreme Court, despite the fraudulent applications being submitted to the province of Nova Scotia.
Justice F. Matthew Kirchner's decision, issued earlier this week and posted online Thursday, begins with a discussion of whether the B.C. court had jurisdiction to hear the case.
Kirchner concluded that it did, relying primarily on the fact that the defendants hired a Vancouver-based lawyer and did not challenge the court's jurisdiction.
Bao brought the case in B.C., the court heard, because Welltrend Canada Consulting Inc. – a separate company with some ownership connections to the Beijing-based corporation – was incorporated in the province.
Though it initially hired counsel and participated in proceedings, Welltrend Beijing stopped communicating with the court system after its second lawyer withdrew in June 2022, according to the decision.