After a 12-day trial that involved the setting aside of a separation agreement, based on Mr. Block’s failure to disclose his vast business interests, the trial judge made several property and support orders in favour of Deborah Ann Block, with payments to be made to her by her husband, Cyrus Paul Block. See Block v. Block 2026 BCSC 386
The trial judge determined the value of a number of corporate shares, dividends, and amounts of retroactive spousal and child support and gave authority to a registrar of the court to determine a payment schedule.
The registrar issued Certificate #1 in November 2025 certifying that Mr. Block was to pay his former wife $1,159,512 in retroactive spousal support, plus court ordered interest.
A further Certificate was issued in January 2026 which provided that Mr. Block would pay Ms. Block the sum of $2.5 million on or before February 6, 2026, the sum of $2.5 million on or before June 30, 2026, and the balance of $8,991,830 on or before December 31, 2026.
Court order interest would accrue at $1,858.70 per day until the first payment was made and would decline thereafter. She also ordered that if Mr. Block were to sell his shares and receive funds sufficient to pay out the judgment and accrued interest, he would pay the total amount to Ms. Block within 14 days of receipt of the sale proceeds.
Mr. Block had earlier filed an appeal of the trial orders and Certificate #2 and applied to stay those orders arguing that he would suffer irreparable harm through the irreversible final sale of shares. He submitted that Ms. Block had already received $1,165,000 and was also receiving support of $11,500 a month. He also pointed out that Ms. Block had retained assets valued at over $4.4 million.
Ms. Block answered her husband’s submissions by drawing attention to Mr. Block’s financial statement in evidence at the trial, where he showed liquid assets of $3,722,929, less the payment of $1,059,512 he had paid her pursuant to Certificate #1. He also had income of $1,428,571 in 2022, $698,214 in 2023, and $807,612 in 2024.
She advised the court that his stay application was brought 16 months after the trial order was handed down, and on the eve of a payment requirement, another factor she said weighed against the granting of a stay.
As the trial judge had been appointed to the Court of Appeal, another judge presided over the stay proceedings. The court reviewed the test for a stay which requires there be some merit to the appeal, that the applicant will suffer irreparable harm if the stay is refused, and on balance, the inconvenience to the applicant if the stay should be refused would be greater than the inconvenience to the respondent if the stay should be granted.
Finally, the court considered whether a stay was in the interests of justice, citing Cheema v. Mand 2025 BCCA 381 and Mission Creek Mortgage Ltd. v. Angleland Holdings Inc. 2013 BCCA 146.
Because the standard to determine the merits of an appeal is low, the court found that Mr. Block had satisfied the first prong of the legal test.
With respect to suffering irreversible harm, the court stated that the registrar found that Mr. Block’s net worth was over $60 million dollars, an asset base that had been maintained at the time of the stay application.
The court found that he had the means to make the first payment of $2.5 million from his liquid assets, and that future payments were sufficiently spaced over time to provide him with time to liquidate other assets to pay Ms. Block, noting that he had not adequately addressed any efforts he had made to obtain mortgage financing, sell real estate, or obtain financing against his $60 million dollar interest in Block Communications Inc., a US print and broadcast media company owned by his family.
His stay application was dismissed, with the court finding that Ms. Block would be in a position to reimburse him, if his appeal was successful. Following a 12-day trial involving the setting aside of a separation agreement, largely due to Mr.
**This article was first published in LAW360, a publication of LexisNexis Canada.