The taxpayer, a family trust, made a non-arm's-length sale of shares to a numbered corporation for a promissory note of approximately $2.6 million. The numbered corporation then immediately sold the shares at arm's length to a third party ("Keolis") for approximately $2.8 million. The lower sale price on the first transfer reflected that it had been determined that 404 would bear the cost of professional fees, relating to the structuring of the sale to Keolis, of $233,786.
Archambault J. affirmed the Minister's position that the amount of these professional fees was "consideration" received by the taxpayer. That amount was therefore added to variable D in s. 84.1(1)(b), resulting in an increase in the dividend deemed to be received by the taxpayer. Archambault J. stated (at para. 16):
I accept the definition of consideration laid down in Currie and referred to by Judge Lamarre in Republic National Bank, above, and the definition in Black's Law Dictionary, according to which "consideration" can encompass "[t]he inducement to a contract... [s]ome right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss, or responsibility, given, suffered, or undertaken by the other." By agreeing to be billed for the fees related to the sale of the shares in the place of Fiducie, [the numbered corporation] was, in a sense, undertaking Fiducie's responsibility. A benefit therefore accrued to Fiducie.