Staff of the Ontario Securities Commission have announced a tentative settlement in a case involving ATI Technologies.

However, there was no mention of a settlement involving insider trading allegations against the company’s founder, K.Y. Ho, or several other former company executives and family members.

The OSC announced today that it will hold a hearing Tuesday to decide whether to accept the settlement with the graphics chip company. Until then, its terms will be kept confidential.

Two years ago, the OSC launched proceedings against ATI Technologies, chairman K.Y. Ho, his wife Betty Ho, ATI’s former director of investor relations Jo-Anne Chang, her husband David Stone, ATI former marketing manager Mary de la Torre, and her husband Alan Rae.

They were accused of benefiting to the tune of almost $8 million from illegal insider trading.

ATI was alleged to have failed to disclose material information on a “timely” basis and of making misleading statements to the commission.

In 2003, the OSC announced that it had begun an investigation into trades made by some company insiders shortly before ATI issued a major revenue and earnings warning back in 2000.

The warning led to a 42% plunge in ATI’s share price that day.

In a statement of allegations from 2003, the OSC said K.Y. Ho and his wife traded a total of 494,900 ATI shares between April 24, 2000 and May 2, 2000.

By selling 240,900 shares before the May 24, 2000 news release outlining the earnings warning, the OSC said the Hos avoided a loss of $3,352,824.

Ho resigned as CEO of ATI in the summer of 2004 but remained chairman and is the main shareholder of the company. He has denied doing anything wrong.