Bixi riles Montreal councillors by paying bonuses before declaring bankruptcy

Montreal city councillors were outraged to discover that Bixi paid employees $232,000 in bonuses in December before the bike-share company filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Bixi owes Montreal $30 million and other creditors $20 million. However, the bonuses are legal, having been written into the employees’ contracts.

Thirty-nine permanent Bixi workers received the bonuses, with CEO Michel Philibert getting $14,000. Philibert told the CBC that the bonuses were paid when the company still believed it could avoid bankruptcy.

Although the leader of municipal party Projet Montréal, Richard Bergeron, insists that the money must be paid back, mayor Denis Coderre admits that there is no way that the city can retrieve the legal bonuses.

Recently, the City of Vancouver and Portland’s Alta company, the latter of which was tasked with building and maintaining Vancouver’s bike-share program using Bixi machines, said that planning for the system would continue, possibly with bikes from Richmond, B.C.’s SandVault.