BURST
An employee of a Surrey greenhouse for more than 36 years who abruptly quit this month is being sued for more than $7 million.
Burnaby Lake Greenhouses, a large family-owned wholesaler, alleges the head of its cut flower department paid a fictitious company $7,174,298.30 over 13 years without receiving any products in return, according to the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
That company, Mac Greenery and More Enterprises, was discovered in January to be solely owned by Duane Ingram, a Burnaby Lake manager since 1993 and an employee since 1989, the company alleges in the lawsuit.
The first invoice from Mac Greenery, which was to have provided greens and foliage for cut flower bouquets, was on Dec. 18, 2012, a day after it was registered as a company, according to the lawsuit.
The greenhouse, which sells cut flowers, potted plants and other greens and foliage, alleged in the lawsuit that Ingram would email “prepay invoices” from Mac Greenery every month to the chief financial officer and an accounts payable employee at Burnaby Lake Greenhouses.
Ingram would request that cheques made payable to Mac Greenery be prepared and given to him. And he would also hand deliver extra invoices from Mac Greenery throughout the month to account payables, with the same requests for paper cheques, it said.
He said he would hand the cheques to Mac Greenery when it dropped off its order, according to the lawsuit.
Later, he would sign off to indicate the order had been delivered, it alleged.
The company was formed for “the purpose of misappropriating funds from Burnaby Lake and no products were ever delivered by Mac Greenery,” the lawsuit alleged. “At all times, Mr. Ingram knew the representations to be false and took active steps to conceal his deceit.”
On Jan. 13 this year, an accounts payable employee had a question for Ingram about an extra invoice from Mac Greenery, according to the claim. Instead she spoke to the assistant manager of cut flowers, who said she didn’t recognize the company as a vendor.
Burnaby Lake investigated and found the GST number for Mac Greenery provided to accounts payable wasn’t registered with the government and no products were delivered from the company, according to the lawsuit.
On Jan. 26, accounts payable emailed Ingram, telling him the GST wasn’t registered, according to the claim.
The next day, Ingram called in sick, saying he had a doctor’s appointment and he repeated his sick calls again over the next two days, saying he was in the hospital and unable to work, the lawsuit alleged.
The following Tuesday, he sent the company a formal letter, informing it of his immediate resignation because of a rapid and serious decline in health, it said.
The company is seeking damages in the amount of the missing funds as well as damages for breach of contract and restitution for unjust enrichment.
A message left for Burnaby Lake through its lawyer wasn’t immediately returned. Ingram couldn’t be reached for comment.