A Québec judge has sent a nearly $694,000 credit insurance dispute to arbitration, handing insurer Atradius a clean procedural win and offering a useful playbook for Canadian insurers and brokers drafting commercial policies.
In Fuze Logistics Services Inc. c. Atradius Crédito y Caución (Seguros y Reaseguros), 2026 QCCS 1632, released May 8, 2026, Justice Maude Grenier of the Québec Superior Court granted Atradius's request to pull the coverage fight out of court and into private arbitration - exactly where the policy said it belonged.
The case started, as many of these do, with a claim and a refusal. In October 2021, Atradius issued a credit insurance policy to Fuze Logistics Services Inc., a transportation logistics company. The policy covered Fuze against losses if its customers failed to pay their invoices. When Fuze later turned to its insurer for indemnification, Atradius declined to pay. On September 15, 2025, Fuze sued for $693,715.80, naming both Atradius and the insurance broker that represented it in concluding the contract, 3322653 Canada Inc. (Gerald Shtull & Associates), as defendants.
Two months later, on November 13, 2025, Atradius pushed back, asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit and refer the dispute to arbitration. The insurer pointed to a clause tucked into the back of the policy stating that "any dispute or controversy arising out of, in connection with, or relating to this policy shall be submitted to arbitration." The clause called for a three-arbitrator panel, with the parties splitting the costs equally.
Fuze tried to keep the fight in court. Its lawyers argued the arbitration clause clashed with another provision - a jurisdiction clause near the front of the policy stating that the parties "irrevocably and unconditionaly attorn to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts" of the applicable province. Fuze called the two clauses irreconcilable, said any ambiguity should be read against the insurer, and argued the arbitration requirement was abusive under Québec's Civil Code.
Justice Grenier disagreed on every point. Reading the policy as a whole, she found the arbitration clause was mandatory, final, and binding - a "perfect" arbitration clause in legal terms. The jurisdiction clause, she ruled, simply set the location for arbitration and covered the narrow categories the policy carved out from arbitration, such as punitive or exemplary damages, loss of revenue or profits, and reviews of arbitral decisions. The arbitration clause even pointed back to the jurisdiction clause for venue, which tied the two together rather than putting them at odds.
On the abusiveness argument, the judge distinguished a recent Court of Appeal decision, Hydro-Québec c. Terrassement St-Louis, where a similar clause was struck down. The Fuze claim was much larger, the record was thin on whether Fuze was a small business, and Fuze had been represented by a broker. Whether the clause is truly abusive, she said, is a fact-heavy question best left to the arbitrator.
For insurers, the decision is a quiet endorsement of well-drafted arbitration regimes. For brokers, the lingering presence of Gerald Shtull & Associates as a co-defendant - untouched by the arbitration order - is a familiar reminder that errors and omissions exposure does not disappear just because the insurer finds the exit door.
