Ex-Electric Lion employees have met with members of the integrated team of the financial market police of the Royal Canada Gendarmerie (RCMP) in recent weeks.
• Read also: “More important command in the history of lion”: zero truck delivered on 50 to the CN
• Read also: Electric lion has benefited twice from subsidies for defective trucks
• Read also: Financial statements: The American gendarme has requested species from electric lion
Two ex-employees of the manufacturer of electric vehicles in Saint-Jérôme entrusted to the Journal Going to the federal police divisional headquarters in Westmount to answer questions about their former employer.
According to our information, the RCMP is particularly interested in truck sales announcements made by Lion from 2020 to 2022, while the company was led by its founder, Marc Bédard.
Electric lion photo
During this period, the company expressed several truck orders, notably with prestigious customers like Amazon and the national Canadian. However, Amazon received only a handful of lion trucks while the CN received none, revealed The newspaper Last fall.
In a presentation to investors dating from November 2020, Lion argued having sold trucks in Agropur and Molson Coors, but these two companies confirmed to the Journallast year, having never placed an order with the company.
In a presentation to investors made in November 2020, Lion argued having sold trucks in Agropur and Molson Coors, but these two companies indicated in the newspaper last year, that this was not the case.
Extract from an electric lion document
Double subsidies
GRC investigators also examine a scheme uncovered by The newspaper Six months ago. Lion would have offered about twenty customers to take over a truck that did not work and replace it with a new vehicle. By the way, the manufacturer would have benefited from the subsidies offered by Quebec and Ottawa a second time, which is prohibited.
The RCMP is preparing to meet representatives of companies who appeared on the lists of lion truck customers, according to our sources.
Catastrophic
For electric lion, which was born as a school bus manufacturer, the foray into the truck sector, which cost it tens of millions of dollars, turned out to be catastrophic.
In the 2020 document, Lion mentioned the sale of 15,800 trucks in 2024. The company finally delivered only 36 from 2021 to 2024, before sinking into insolvency last fall.
As usual, the RCMP refused on Friday to confirm or deny the holding of an investigation into Lion.
“If an investigation leads to the filing of criminal charges, the RCMP will confirm that an investigation has been carried out,” said the nature of the accusations led and the identity of the persons involved, “said Corporal Erique Gasse in an email.
Public funds
Recall that the Legault government, the deposit fund and the FTQ solidarity fund invested at least $ 180 million in electric lion from 2020 to 2023. Ottawa also paid $ 30 million in business support.
In February, a law firm from New York made a collective action request against Lion in the Superior Court of Quebec.
It is alleged that the managers of the company have made “false and deceptive representations related to the financial health of the company and omitted important facts concerning its order book and its production capacities”.
“Neither the CEO nor other people from management at Lion Electric have made” potentially misleading statements “,” said the company in December.
In May, a group of investors made up of Pierre Wilkie, Luc Sabbatini, Éric d’Anjou, Claude Boivin, Martin Barbeau, Pierre Bolduc, Michael Zakuta and Vincent Chiara bought Lion activities for $ 6 million.
Thousands of small investors have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the electrical lion’s delight, the shares of which were listed on the spring of 2021 at the end of 2024.
The buyers, however, focus their efforts on the buses. Seven Lion6 trucks were sold at auction this week for about $ 30,000 each, ten times less than their original sale price.
