The Calgary Herald recently published an article entitled, “Alberta Securities Commission and RCMP create new team to tackle white-collar crime” by Bill Graveland. This new unit called the “Joint Serious Offences Team” will investigate and prosecute cases under Alberta’s Securities Act or the Criminal Code. This unit’s goal will be to target repeat offenders of…
As of July 1, 2016, a new subsection came into force in the Securities Act (Ontario) (the Act) prohibiting a person in a “special relationship” with an issuer, with knowledge of material non-public information (MNPI), from recommending or encouraging a trade in that issuer’s securities. The new subsection 3.1 reads as follows: Recommendation (3.1) No…
The following article was published in the Globe and Mail on January 18, 2016. It discusses the BC Securities Commission’s computer program that it introduced in 2014 to read regulatory filings. This program uses a computerized “predictive risk model” to find companies that sell securities to unqualified people in the exempt market. According to the…
On March 31, 2015, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) issued an Order approving a settlement agreement between OSC staff and Anand Hariharan (Hariharan) who traded in securities of a non-reporting issuer while in possession of material non-public information (MNPI). Background Hariharan’s close childhood friend, Satish Talawdekar (Talawdekar) was a manager in the IT department of…
Background On March 24, 2015, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) released its decision against a former mergers and acquisition lawyer, Mitchell Finkelstein (Finkelstein) and four investment advisors (together, the respondents) in a high profile tipping¹ and insider trading² decision. OSC staff alleged that Finkelstein tipped his long-time friend, Paul Azeff (Azeff), an investment advisor, about…