Market Regulation Services Inc. (RS) has hired five new people into key regulatory positions in its Vancouver office in the last two months.

Joining the independent trading regulator for the TSX Venture Exchange are a new chief counsel and a new manager of surveillance and compliance, as well as new surveillance and investigative staff. The new staff are filling recent vacancies at RS.

The new chief counsel for the western region is Chilwin Cheng. Chilwin comes from his own litigation practice, which was focused on commercial, regulatory and criminal litigation. He previously worked as a litigation associate in a major Vancouver firm, as a criminal prosecutor, and as enforcement counsel with the B.C. Securities Commission. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto Law School.

Michael Grecoff, the new manager, surveillance and compliance, Western Region, brings compliance expertise from his time as chief compliance officer at Dlouhy Merchant Group in Montreal and his preceding time as director, institutional operations and institutional compliance at Desjardins Securities in Montreal where he was responsible for the institutional and retail trade desks, research and corporate finance.

Wade Cox is a new investigator on RS’s investigations and enforcement team. Wade was a trader at Wolverton Securities and CIBC World Markets in Vancouver, as well as a Vancouver Computerized Trading Administrator in the days of the Vancouver Stock Exchange. He joined RS in February as an investigative trading analyst.

Jasmer Rai joins the Vancouver office of RS as an investigator. He comes to RS from Research Capital’s Vancouver branch where he was assistant branch manager. His industry experience also includes tenure at Yorkton Securities/First Associates as a senior credit and senior compliance officer and at Bolder Investment Partners in Vancouver as manager of compliance.

Judi Sullivan, the newest surveillance officer at RS, has 25 years of experience in the Canadian securities industry. She came to RS from Canaccord Capital Corp. where she was a trade desk specialist and compliance officer for the past three years. Previous to that, she worked at the VSE for 22 years in a number of roles.

“RS will benefit tremendously from the additional industry expertise that Chilwin, Michael, Wade, Jasmer and Judi bring to RS,” said Gerry Halischuk, who leads RS’s Vancouver operations as vp, market regulation, Western Region. “They add to our depth of understanding of the local market and enhance our ability to effectively address market issues.”