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1. Overview
On November 27, 2025, The Globe and Mail reported that Molson Coors Canada ("Molson") uncovered an alleged internal embezzlement scheme involving senior sales employees and external vendors, resulting in losses exceeding $9 million since 2021.1 Molson has commenced an action alleging that its former Senior Director of National & Key Accounts, together with other employees and business partners, carried out a multi-year scheme built on fictitious invoices, improper vendor relationships, concealed payments, and the destruction of company data.2
Although the allegations remain unproven, the case offers an insightful look at how vendor-collusion and procurement fraud can occur inside large organizations. It also illustrates how multiple, ordinary control points (including vendor onboarding, approval authority, documentation requirements, and monitoring) can be incrementally bypassed. For many companies, the Molson case serves as an important reminder that internal controls are the first line of defence against insider misconduct, and that fraud risk often arises from trusted employees rather than external threat actors.
2. Molson's Allegations
Molson alleges that its former Senior Director of National & Key Accounts ("NKA"), Frank Ivankovic, spent years exploiting the authority and institutional knowledge he gained over a two-decade career to orchestrate a multi-party embezzlement scheme.3
(a) The Conspirators
Ivankovic joined Molson in the early 2000s and had, by the time the alleged fraud occurred, broad discretion over the NKA budget, including authority to approve purchase orders, allocate spending, direct internal order coding, and manage vendor relationships.4
He allegedly recruited his direct report, National Sales Account Manager Michael Conforti, who managed Molson's relationship with the Firkin Hospitality Group, a significant Molson customer.5
Molson's claim ties the fraudulent scheme to Firkin principals, Larry Isaacs and Ellen Bacher, who controlled 466 Ontario Inc. ("466 Ontario") and Letz Go Consulting Inc. ("Letz Go").6 The claim alleges these companies had no legitimate operational capacity. Instead, they billed Molson for made-up services and functioned almost exclusively as vehicles for receiving payments from Molson.7
(b) The Fraud
Molson alleges that beginning in 2021, the defendants worked together to generate invoices that appeared legitimate but described fictional, duplicative, or inflated work, often framed as marketing, promotional, or "event planning" services purportedly provided by Letz Go or 466 Ontario to Molson. Molson pleads that the scheme operated as follows:8
- Fabrication of invoices: Bacher allegedly prepared invoices for Letz Go and 466 Ontario at the direction of Ivankovic and/or Isaacs, describing fictional or inflated services.9
- Internal approval of the invoices: Ivankovic and/or Conforti approved the invoices using their authority within the NKA budget, allowing payments to be processed without escalation.10
- Funds immediately flowed out to the vendors: Once paid by Molson on the fabricated invoices, Letz Go and 466 Ontario allegedly transferred the funds almost immediately to the conspirators and their related entities:
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- Letz Go: In 60 of 63 transactions, exactly 50% of each invoice amount was transferred to Ivankovic and his wife, Kelly O'Brien-Ivankovic, either directly or through KO Consulting, which she incorporated in 2024. O'Brien, a chiropractor with no event-planning or marketing background, allegedly issued sham invoices to justify these "secret payments".11
- 466 Ontario: Payments allegedly followed a 25% split, with funds routed to Conforti and another Molson employee whom Ivankovic recruited. Payments were also directed toward Ivankovic's golf-club membership, KO Consulting, Conforti's companies, and a $450,000 loan to Ivankovic's accountant, who serviced KO Consulting, 466 Ontario, and Letz Go.12
Molson alleges that more than $4.5 million flowed through these vendors to the conspirators and their companies, and that total losses exceeded $9 million between 2021 and 2025.13
(c) Discovery
Molson discovered the scheme after uncovering an email exchange between Ivankovic and his bank, which had questioned $276,116 in deposits from Letz Go and 466 Ontario. According to the claim, Ivankovic then texted his accountant for guidance, who allegedly told him to "tell the bank to [expletive] off."14
Days later, Bacher emailed Ivankovic fabricated invoices purporting to document event-planning services performed by O'Brien, despite her lack of relevant experience. On December 30, 2023, Ivankovic sent those invoices to the bank, allegedly misrepresenting the deposits as legitimate compensation.15
(d) Investigation
Molson's discovery prompted a broader internal investigation. A review of Ivankovic's corporate email account uncovered an Excel spreadsheet titled kelly_2025, which tracked fraudulent transactions involving Letz Go and 466 Ontario. The document allegedly detailed the amounts routed through the vendors and the corresponding "secret payments" returned to the conspirators.16
As the investigation continued, Molson uncovered evidence that employees had attempted to delete or withhold company data related to the scheme. Ivankovic allegedly deleted company data from his phone, including contracts and communications relating to Isaacs, O'Brien, and Conforti. Conforti allegedly performed a factory reset on his company-issued phone and refused to provide access to company data stored on another device he used extensively for work purposes.17
Both Ivankovic and Conforti resigned from the company in October 2024, while the investigation was still underway.18
(e) Lawsuit
With the internal investigation underway and evidence of widespread misconduct continuing to mount, Molson moved quickly to commence civil proceedings.
On November 26, 2025, Molson issued an action against Ivankovic, O'Brien, Conforti, Isaacs, Bacher, and related corporate entities, seeking damages for fraud, civil conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, and related causes of action. Molson also seeks injunctive relief restraining the defendants from transferring or dissipating assets pending further order of the Court — a standard but critical remedy in civil fraud cases to preserve assets for potential recovery.19
As Molson's internal memo to employees put it, the company is "deeply disappointed" that long-tenured employees and trusted business partners were involved, and it "intends to pursue all available avenues to recover the stolen funds."20
3. How Molson's Internal Controls Failed
The claim and public reporting provide a detailed illustration of how the defendants were allegedly able to exploit gaps in Molson's internal controls over several years. Although the Globe and Mail article offered a high-level overview, Molson's statement of claim reveals a deeper pattern of failures across the entire procurement and approval cycle.
(a) Vendor-Onboarding Weaknesses
Molson's vendor-creation controls allegedly allowed two shell entities, Letz Go and 466 Ontario, to be onboarded and paid despite having no operational footprint, no expense structure consistent with the services described, and no business rationale for their purported work. Letz Go's bank records allegedly showed that nearly all of its receipts came from Molson and that it incurred none of the costs one would expect for large-scale event planning or marketing work. Enhanced diligence, beneficial-ownership verification, or conflict-screening would likely have raised immediate concerns.
(b) Concentrated Authority and Lack of Segregation of Duties
Ivankovic allegedly had end-to-end authority over the NKA budget: he could recommend vendors, approve purchase orders, direct internal IO coding, authorize payments within his threshold, and instruct administrative staff on how to process invoices. This concentration of authority meant that standard checks and balances did not operate as intended, allowing him to approve fraudulent invoices without escalation or review.21
(c) Lack of segregation of duties
By allowing one individual and his direct report to initiate, approve, and code expenditures, Molson's controls created an environment where fraudulent transactions could be inserted into the system without independent scrutiny. The fraud succeeded in part because the individuals responsible for vendor relationship management were the same people approving spend tied to those vendors.
(d) Insufficient Invoice Validation and Documentation
The Claim alleges that Molson paid invoices that lacked statements of work, deliverable confirmations, or contractual documentation.22 These gaps indicate deficiencies in invoice-validation processes and proof-of-performance requirements. The predictable and repetitive nature of the invoicing further suggests that routine audits could have disrupted the pattern early.
(e) Budget and coding manipulation
Ivankovic allegedly concealed fraudulent payments by manipulating budget allocations, reassigning IO codes, and mischaracterizing spend as promotional or marketing activity.[23] Because Molson's internal reporting apparently did not include exception-based review or audit triggers tied to unusual coding patterns, these misallocations went undetected.
(f) Absence of Analytics-Based Monitoring
The fixed-percentage flow-through pattern (50/50 splits from Letz Go and 25% distributions through 466 Ontario) is the type of data anomaly that basic monitoring tools can usually detect. Regular spend analysis comparing vendor activity, invoice patterns, and recipient flowthroughs likely would have surfaced the irregularities far sooner.
Critically, Molson did not discover the scheme through its own controls. The misconduct surfaced only when a third party (Ivankovic's bank) questioned the large deposits and reached out for an explanation. The fact that an external financial institution, rather than Molson's internal control mechanisms, detected the anomaly is not at all uncommon in these types of frauds.
4. Lessons for Organizations: Strengthening Procurement and Vendor Controls
Strengthening procurement and payment controls is a priority across many organizations, particularly those managing large vendor networks or decentralized budgets. While no control environment can eliminate risk entirely, several practical measures can be adopted to enhance detection, improve oversight, and reduce opportunities for misuse. Companies seeking to assess or modernize their frameworks often begin with the following focus areas:
- Strengthen vendor-onboarding checks: Verify beneficial ownership, confirm operational capability, and screen for conflicts before activating a vendor.
- Reinforce segregation of duties: Ensure no single employee can initiate, approve, and record the same transaction.
- Tighten documentation requirements: Require scopes of work, deliverable confirmations, and periodic audits before paying invoices.
- Adopt analytics-based monitoring: Use tools that flag repetitive invoice patterns, unusual spend spikes, or coordinated payment flows.
5. How We Can Help
Our team of litigators regularly assists clients with procurement-control assessments, internal investigations, and civil recovery strategies involving tracing, constructive trust claims, and fiduciary breach actions. We would be pleased to discuss how to enhance your procurement and vendor-management environment in light of the issues raised in this case.
Footnotes
1. Globe & Mail, "Molson Coors accuses Canadian staff of embezzlement scheme" (27 November 2025) online: Westlaw [Globe & Mail] at para 1.
2. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 1-2.
3. Globe & Mail at para 3 and Molson Statement of Claim at para 2.
4. Molson Statement of Claim at para 5.
5. Molson Statement of Claim at para 8.
6. Molson Statement of Claim at para 11.
7. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 14-19.
8. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 25, 30 & 35.
9. Globe & Mail at para 11.
10. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 5 & 15.
11. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 36-39.
12. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 42-45.
13. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 19 & 53.
14. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 26-28.
15. Molson Statement of Claim at para 30.
16. Molson Statement of Claim at para 31.
17. Molson Statement of Claim at paras 10 & 82-83.
18. Globe & Mail at para 9.
19. Molson Statement of Claim.
20. Globe & Mail at para 22.
21. Molson Statement of Claim at para 22.
22. Molson Statement of Claim at para 35.
23. Molson Statement of Claim at para 25.
The foregoing provides only an overview and does not constitute legal advice. Readers are cautioned against making any decisions based on this material alone. Rather, specific legal advice should be obtained.
© McMillan LLP 2025
