Toronto-based Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc. revealed on Thursday that it is embroiled in a dispute with firm’s eponymous co-founders, Ira Gluskin and Gerald Sheff, over the size of their retirement benefits.
The wealth-management firm is undergoing a private arbitration process to resolve the dispute over the size of payouts due under retirement agreements it has with Gluskin and Sheff.
The company received a decision from the arbitrator on Wednesday, March 16, ruling that Gluskin and Sheff have a valid reason for seeking additional remedies under the agreement. The second phase of the arbitration will determine just how much they are entitled to under the deal.
According to the firm, it currently calculates the fair market value of their benefits at $12.2 million. Whereas, it says that in notices seeking additional remedies under the retirement agreements, Gluskin is seeking $75 million and Sheff is seeking $110 million.
In its statement, the company says that it “intends to vigorously contest these amounts” in the second phase of the arbitration process.
No date has been set for the second phase of the process, the company says, adding it won’t be commenting further, “pending the final decision of the arbitrator.”
In their own joint statement about the case, Gluskin and Sheff say that before seeking additional remedies under the agreement, they retained two independent experts who separately provided their preliminary views on the value of the firm’s obligations to them. “The amounts that are being claimed by [Gluskin and Sheff] were arrived at with the benefit of those views,” they say.
No date has been set for the second phase of the process. Both the company, and the co-founders say that they won’t be commenting further on the case, “pending the final decision of the arbitrator.”