A Toronto man has been banned from trading for five years and ordered to disgorge his profits after he admitted to trading on inside information obtained from his son, who worked at a Big Four accounting firm.
A hearing panel of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) on Thursday approved a settlement between Fernando Postrado and OSC staff under which Postrado is banned from trading for five years and ordered to disgorge the $109,200 he made from trading on inside information. He also must pay an administrative penalty of $10,000 and $4,250 in costs.
Under the terms of the settlement, Postrado admitted to insider trading based on tips from his son, Andrei Miguel Postrado, who worked in the real estate and construction tax department at KPMG LLP (Canada) and passed along news of two pending takeovers. The elder Postrado bought shares in the firms ahead of the public announcement of the mergers and acquisitions transactions in his online discount brokerage accounts, generating profits of $101,776 on one of the trades and US$4,605 on the other.
According to the settlement, “Fernando has accepted full responsibility for his conduct and is remorseful. He has fully cooperated with staff’s investigation. He has extremely limited resources and no assets in hisname.” It also notes that the elder Postrado followed up the tips from his son “by researching and analyzing the financial performance and fundamentals of the [companies] and considered them to be good and worthwhile investments.”
KPMG says it co-operated with the OSC’s investigation, and that it terminated Andrei Postrado after the allegations came to light.
“Given the firm’s commitment to conduct ourselves at all times with the highest integrity and respect for the law, we were appalled to learn of these allegations against our former employee,” the firm said in a statement. “We are confident that this was an isolated incident and is in no way reflective of how we conduct our business. KPMG is committed to continuing to provide our clients with best in class professional service while protecting their privacy and the confidentiality of their information.”