An Alberta judge has temporarily frozen up to $8.5 million in assets belonging to separatist lawyer Jeffrey Rath and his law firm, as part of a legal dispute over trust money from a First Nation treaty settlement.
Alberta Court of King’s Bench Justice Marion granted an interim Mareva order against Rath and his business Rath & Company on July 10, according to documents first obtained by Global News. The judge found reasonable grounds to believe the assets could be moved or dissipated before a ruling is made in the ongoing court case.
A Mareva order, also known as a freezing order, temporarily prevents a person from moving or selling assets while a legal case is ongoing, so the money or property is still available if the court later orders payment.
The $8,518,075 in frozen assets includes bank and investment accounts, vehicles, real estate property, and personal property. The order remains in effect until July 15, when a further hearing is scheduled.
Rath is the co-founder of and legal counsel for the Alberta Prosperity Project, a pro-separatist group in Alberta pushing for the province to leave Canada. He has previously represented First Nations in high-profile treaty settlements.
He told The Epoch Times that he could not comment on the Mareva order as the matter remains before the courts, adding there is “another side to this story.”
“At its heart it’s an ongoing fee dispute,” he said on July 14.
Rath has been in a court battle with Tallcree First Nation, which stemmed from a fee dispute that escalated into a battle over trust money that was intended to benefit Tallcree members, including minors. In 2021, Alberta courts reduced a 20 percent fee that Rath & Company charged for Tallcree’s $57.6 million Treaty 8 settlement, and ordered a $8.5 million repayment into their First Nation Trust.
Tallcree Chief Rupert Meneen said in a court affidavit that the trust distributed settlement funds to eligible beneficiaries while holding the portions of settlement funds belonging to members who were minors until they reached adulthood. Meneen said that Rath’s firm served as sole trustee of the fund.
In new court filings, it is alleged that Rath withheld financial statements from the trust, and the filings showed that he had charged more than $6 million in 2024, which was the same year the trust was required to make the court-ordered repayment of about $8.5 million. Tallcree’s lawyers had argued that the trust may have paid for much of its own repayment.
Meneen has accused Rath of not providing financial statements for the trust after 2020, despite being obliged to do this. He said the statements that were only produced after repeated demands and a court-enforced order showed that Rath charged the trust large bills in 2024, which included $4.6 million in retroactive “trust administrative costs” and $1.4 million in “professional fees.”
The allegations have not yet been proven in court, and Rath has not yet filed a response to the allegations.
