An ex-law dean, who is believed to be hiding out in Switzerland, has been ordered to pay back more than a half a million dollars in phony expenses he filed to the University of Manitoba.
Jonathan Black-Branch owes his former employer $682,449.41, as per a default judgment from the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench.
The May 2 decision includes a hefty repayment, as well as interest and the cost of proceedings that involved hiring a private investigator to locate him.
It was made on the grounds that Black-Branch did not acknowledge or defend himself against allegations he had misspent public dollars and schemed to evade oversight while running Robson Hall between from 2016 to 2020.
“Accountability is very important to the university and (U of M) intends to pursue all available collection remedies to secure payment of the judgment,” a spokesperson for Manitoba’s largest post-secondary institute wrote in an email to the Free Press Tuesday.
U of M initiated a lawsuit last summer — four years after Black-Branch’s five-year contract was cut short. A university investigation had found he was using public dollars to pay his personal bills and upgrade his resumé with U.S. Ivy League college courses.
Those internal findings, shared with the Law Society of Manitoba, led to Black-Branch being disbarred in February 2024.
(He repeatedly delayed the professional watchdog’s disciplinary hearings between 2021 and 2023, citing his mental health, and declined to participate when the society did eventually proceed at its headquarters in downtown Winnipeg.)
Jeff Hirsch and Miranda Grayson of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP have represented the university in court in recent months.
“While there is some suspicion that the defendant may be residing in Switzerland, the defendant’s address remains unknown. All attempts to contact the defendant via his email and telephone have been unsuccessful,” the lawyers wrote in a Dec. 20 submission.
“Effectively, the defendant appears to be evading contact with the plaintiff’s counsel.”
Black-Branch, a Canadian citizen who has been called to the bar in both Canada and the United Kingdom, moved to England in 2020.
Court documents show U of M’s lawyers hired Roussillon Group Ltd., a private investigation company located about 100 kilometres south of Oxford, in August to serve a statement of claim.
A process server from the firm went to Black-Branch’s last known address in Oxford on Aug. 23 in an attempt to do just that, and found it was empty and under instruction for sale.
Hirsch and Grayson later tracked down a neighbour of the address who divulged on Dec. 4 that he and other residents on High Street suspected Black-Branch was in Switzerland.
A man who was temporarily living in Black-Branch’s house had told neighbours the property owner had left for Switzerland.
The neighbour told U of M’s legal team that another community member had received a call from Black-Branch from a Swiss area code.
The neighbour also shared that he’d received an email from Black-Branch via the address the local lawyers were using to try to contact him — they did not receive a reply between August and May — approximately 10 days before they first sent him a statement of claim.
“There are places and spaces that are better if you want to hide your money and Switzerland is one… As long as you’re a foreigner, they really don’t mind,” said Michelle Gallant, a professor at Robson Hall who researches the proceeds of fraud and other crimes.
Gallant, who worked with Black-Branch during his tenure at U of M, said her former dean was charming, supportive and “a super nice guy” overall.
The duo bonded because they are both originally from the Maritimes, she recalled.
Following the default judgment, U of M can contact other jurisdictions — such as New Brunswick, where the ousted dean grew up — to register it against his assets elsewhere, the academic said.
The Court of King’s Bench registrar has ruled that U of M is entitled to a post-judgment interest rate of three per cent per year.
Gallant said she wishes she had paid more attention to the rumours that circulated about Black-Branch when he was at the helm of Manitoba’s only law school.
“A lot of people were duped — myself included,” the professor said.
“It’s frustrating to me, because I’m supposed to know something about white-collar crime, dirty money.”
Black-Branch did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
