Court Favors Pensions in Fight Over Defunct Hudson’s Bay Stores

Property mogul Ruby Liu’s bid to take over the leases of 25 former Hudson’s Bay Co. locations has been rejected by a Canadian bankruptcy court, persuaded by the near unanimous objections of the defunct department store’s former landlords.

Each one of the landlords “objects to being forced into a long-term commercial relationship with a tenant to whom they never agreed to lease their properties,” Justice Peter Osborne wrote in his decision. “The proposed lease assignments are not approved.”

The decision largely concurred with the landlords’ expressed reservations about Liu’s ability to launch a new national department store chain and meet ...