BC Billionaire Seeking Hudson’s Bay Leases Warned Against Contacting Judge After ‘Inappropriate’ Correspondence

Billionaire Ruby Liu listens during an interview at a former Hudson's Bay-owned Saks Off 5th department store after a "handover ceremony" where she received the keys to the space at Tsawwassen Mills shopping mall that she owns, in Tsawwassen, B.C., on June 26, 2025. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

B.C. billionaire Ruby Liu, who is seeking to acquire more than 20 Hudson’s Bay leases, has been instructed by the chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court to refrain from directly contacting the judge overseeing the case, following correspondence the chief described as “inappropriate.”

The chief justice wrote to Liu on July 15, saying that attempts by any party in an ongoing case to contact the presiding judge directly are “inappropriate,” and warning that if she continued, the messages would be considered “harassing communications.”

Liu sent two e-mails in early July to Justice Peter Osborne, the judge overseeing the retail bankruptcy, explaining why she should be granted the leases and also complaining about other people involved in the case.

“Please be advised that you should not, under any circumstances, attempt to communicate directly with the judge in this matter. You are directed not to do so again,” reads the chief justice office’s email.

“Any further correspondence will be considered harassing communications.”

Liu is a Chinese national and B.C. mall owner. She has signed two deals with the Bay to acquire up to 28 store leases, which she said she plans to use to launch a new department store.

The first deal, a $6 million transaction involving three leases in B.C. malls that Liu owns, was approved by a court last month. The second, which the Bay has yet to seek approval for, involves up to 25 leases in Alberta, B.C., and Ontario, where landlords have objected to taking on Liu as tenant, saying she has not provided a practical business plan.

Liu did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Correspondence

In one of her messages to Osborne, dated July 9, Liu asks the judge to “please give me a chance.”

She opens the message by describing the judge as a person of “justice and strength” who remains “so steadfast, so confident, so noble” amid what she portrays as corruption among other lawyers. Then she shares part of her personal history, including how she began her business career in China, the growth of her family business, and the challenges she has faced along the way.

She also said that in 2010, the situation in China began to shift, with officials “systematically targeting entrepreneurs,” including herself, by “seizing their wealth under the guise of investigations, fabricating troubles, and laying traps to bring down those who had worked hard to build their businesses.”

Liu adds her realization that Chinese society operated through “bribes,” along with an incident involving a reporter that attracted national attention, led her to move to Canada. She ends her letter by describing herself as “someone who has survived the impossible.”

“I am a person of great capability, and I ask you—please give me a chance,” she wrote. “Through transformation, I will create brilliance again.”

In the second email, she tells the judge she would be filing a complaint against some lawyers involved in the case with whom she had issues.

She also argues that the landlords of the remaining 25 leases have “allied together to bypass court procedures and, disregarding the creditors’ losses, schemed to regain the leases for nothing,” adding that despite her efforts to provide a good business plan, the landlords “would still refuse our purchase of the leases.”

Liu also says in her email that Hudson’s Bay has “repeatedly threatened to terminate our agreement and forfeit our deposit,” and she concludes the letter by saying she hopes the judge can “uphold justice in accordance with the law.”

The Bay Asks to Hand Leases to Liu

In one of its most recent moves, the Bay filed a motion on July 29 to ask the court for the approval of the deal the retailer signed with Liu in May, according to court documents.

The company says the deal with Liu will bring a number of benefits.

Those include the recovery of more than $50 million for the retailer’s creditors, the anticipated creation of roughly 1,800 new jobs across Canada—with a commitment to hire former Bay employees when possible—and the possibility of “avoiding the visual and economic blight of a ‘dark’ or empty store for a significantly prolonged period of time,” according the document.

Several landlords, including Oxford, Primaris REIT, and Cadillac Fairview, have voiced concerns about Liu’s business plans. Cadillac Fairview said in a June 11 letter that, based on its interactions with Liu, it believes she does not have the “wherewithal to act as a retail operator in these leased locations.”

“CFCL is left with the strong impression that Ms Liu is making this up as she goes,” reads the letter, contained in court records filed on July 29. “These inconsistencies and lack of clarity in Ms Liu’s messaging, her lack of preparedness, and her lack of experience as a retail operator, undermine her credibility as a serious tenant capable of operating a retail enterprise of this scale in the CFCL locations.”

Primaris expressed a similar view, saying in a June 12 letter that “Ms. Liu’s plans are, in our client’s view, predicated upon hope, optimism and not on experience in respect of the minimum timelines and costs to refurbish twenty-eight (28) locations, in various degrees of disrepair, in three (3) provinces.”

Meanwhile, Liu said in a court document filed on July 29 that despite the landlords’ current opposition to the assignment of the leases, she is “confident that my growing team (which will include former HBC executives) will be able to build fruitful and lasting relationships with them and their communities, if the Court approves the assignment of the Leases.”