The RCMP announced the launch of a pilot national special advisory group to support the force’s capital market investigations.
The advisory group will provide real-time expert advice on investigations at the RCMP’s Integrated Market Enforcement Team (IMET) offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver for a 12-month pilot period, a release said.
The IMET program was created in 2003 to deter fraud through the detection, enforcement and prosecution of serious capital market fraud offences. The teams that drive these investigations are composed of police officers, forensic accountants, lawyers and other investigative experts.
The RCMP said members of the new advisory group were selected based on their extensive background in securities law, forensic accounting, the regulation of capital markets and law enforcement.
The RCMP IMET national special advisory group is scheduled to have its first meeting on Jan. 14.
By the end of the 12-month pilot, the RCMP said they will assess whether the advisory group should be permanently established.
Members include Peter Lambertucci, Alan Stewart, Lawrence E. Ritchie and Bryce Tingle KC.
Lambertucci has held senior roles in financial crime investigations, including capital market-related criminal misconduct, national security and money laundering. He previously spent 31 years with the RCMP as a superintendent and assistant criminal operations officer and is currently director of the security risk management office of the Bank of Canada.
Stewart is a partner with Deloitte LLP and has more than 30 years of experience in forensic accounting and corporate investigations. He was previously chief operating officer of Deloitte Financial Advisory and the national leader of Deloitte Forensic, which provides financial crime, discovery and disputes services. Stewart has provided critical evidence on some of the most complex and high-profile investigations in Canada, including several security-related regulatory and criminal investigations.
Ritchie is a securities litigation lawyer and partner with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP who has represented various high-profile clients and appeared before numerous administrative tribunals and at all levels of court in Canada. He is also an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Ritchie previously served as vice-chair of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), executive vice-president and senior policy advisor for the Canadian Securities Transition Office, a member of the expert panel that recommended the establishment of Ontario’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) and as a FSRA board member.
Tingle has more than 30 years of experience as a corporate finance lawyer. He holds the N. Murray Edwards Chair in Business Law at the University of Calgary and is a member of the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC). He also serves as the board chair of several private technology and asset management companies. Tingle was previously director of the Financial Markets Regulation program at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and a member of the OSC’s exempt markets committee.