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LEGAL REPORT: LITIGATION THE EYEOF THE BY GLENN KAUTH Bay Fine Papers found itself in court facing a bid to put it into receivership. The move succeeded, and now receiver Bob Bougie of Deloitte & Touche LLP in Toronto says the next step is to fi nd a buyer for the company, which had been in distress for some time following a se- ries of closures and restarts. As a forestry company, the northern I Ontario mill is likely one of the low- hanging fruit among businesses facing insolvency in the coming months. But lawyers who work in the bankruptcy fi eld expect as the economic environ- ment gets bleaker, an area of law that has been fairly quiet since a string of high-profi le cases earlier in the decade will once again heat up. "There haven't been a lot of large fi les since Air Canada and Stelco," says Ashley Taylor, a bank- ruptcy and insolvency litigator with Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto. As the credit crisis deepens, however, Taylor has begun hearing from weaker companies he had previously expected to go under that now fi nd themselves unable to fi nd new fi nancing. "Compa- nies were able to roll over their debt and keep operating," he says. "You heard that over and over again. Now, you hear the opposite." Perhaps more surprising than hard- ship in the forestry sector was the recent bid for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by Circuit City Stores Inc. in the United States. The move also sent the company's Canadian arm, The Source by Circuit City operator InterTAN Canada Ltd., www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JANU AR Y 2009 57 n late October, after fi ghting off lawsuits by suppliers for outstand- ing bills, forestry company Thunder In light of the tough economic realities facing businesses, litigation is bound to heat up in the new year. STORM ILLUSTRATION: HUAN TRAN