The Ontario Securities Commission believes in second chances, ruling that it may still grant registration despite a basic error on a registration application.

Friday’s OSC Bulletin reports on a case in which the director reviewing a recommendation to deny registration sided with the applicant and against OSC staff. According to the decision, on July 14, OSC staff recommended an application for registration as a rep for an exempt market dealer be refused. OSC staff claimed that the applicant, Alexander Adams, knowingly made a misrepresentation, and that he did not complete his registration application with due care, by stating in his application that he completed the Canadian Securities Course when in fact he had only completed part one of the CSC.

Adams sought an opportunity to be heard, and maintained that he made an honest mistake. And when contacted by OSC staff, Adams immediately wrote (and passed) part two of the CSC.

The director accepted Adams’ explanation. “I was convinced that the Adams made an honest, somewhat careless, and unfortunate mistake in completing his registration application by stating that he had completed the CSC when in fact he had not. In my view, Adams deserves a ‘second chance’,” the decision notes.

OSC staff pointed out a couple of decisions where misrepresentations in a registration application resulted in refusal of registration. But, in both of those cases, the misrepresentation related to missing disclosure related to a criminal record.

The decision notes that there’s a difference between that sort of omission and the mistake made in this case, “… the lack of disclosure related to conviction of a criminal offence which presumably could not be easily forgotten by either applicant. In this case, I was convinced by Adams (and his character witnesses) that the misrepresentation in his registration application was inadvertent and not knowingly made.”

IE