A Vancouver man who breached a regulatory freeze order has been sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to repay the $500,000 that he withdrew from frozen bank accounts.
According to the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), Scott Thomas Low pled guilty to failing to comply with a BCSC order from 2016 that froze several bank accounts connected to the FS Corporate Group, which was under investigation at the time. Low was a co-founder and a director of the FS Corporate Group.
In 2020, a BCSC panel banned Low and ordered a $2-million penalty against him, and another man, after finding that they violated securities rules. Those sanctions have not been paid, the panel said.
The BCSC reported that when it sought the money in the frozen accounts from the bank, it “discovered three of the accounts were depleted, with one account holding only $314 and two others empty,” which prompted its criminal investigations branch to launch an investigation.
The regulator said that Low has admitted that, in 2018, he withdrew $504,095 from three frozen corporate accounts, which was deposited in the trust account of a lawyer who was then serving as defence counsel for the FS Corporate Group.
The BCSC said “the proceeds were subsequently used to pay for expenses on behalf of the FS Corporate Group.”
After pleading guilty to breaching the Securities Act by failing to comply with the regulator’s order, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, 60 hours of community service and 12 months of probation. He was also ordered to pay $504,095 to the BCSC.