Nova Scotia taxpayers are going to the back of the line in the multimillion-dollar bankruptcy case of D'Eon Fisheries Ltd.

The province was owed $4.2 million when D'Eon Fisheries, which was a leader in the silver hake fishery in Nova Scotia., went under in 2013.

On Monday, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge ruled the province did not properly secure the debt. For taxpayers, this means they will not immediately be reimbursed when creditors are eventually paid out.

Justice Jeffrey Hunt said the province secured the company's fishing licence, but not the quota that went with it.

There is no timeline for repayment.

D'Eon had a subsidiary firm known as Blue Wave Seafoods Inc. D'Eon obtained raw material for Blue Wave to process through its plant. Over the years, D'Eon and Blue Wave entered into multiple borrowing agreements and security instruments with various lenders.

D'Eon and Blue Wave began to experience financial difficulty and filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 17, 2013.

Two years ago, Michel Samson, then the Liberal minister of economic and rural development, said the province had company land, equipment and quota as security for the $500,000 loan advanced to the company in August 2013 by the previous NDP government.