Securities regulators in British Columbia have banned a man for seven years after he was found to have illegally distributed securities in the province.

A hearing panel of the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) ordered that Adis Golic be banned from trading and registration for seven years after he was convicted in provincial court of trading without registration and illegally distributing securities when he sold securities of AD Capital U.S. Inc. to three investors for total proceeds of $42,000. He was found not guilty of making misrepresentations to investors.

Following his conviction, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to make $40,000 in restitution (the BCSC decision notes that one of the investors in the case was a BCSC investigator operating undercover, the other two investors lost $40,000).

The BCSC brought allegations against Golic back in May 2008, but the regulatory case was adjourned, pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings that were brought in 2010. Now, based solely on the criminal court record, the BCSC panel has also found that he carried out an illegal distribution and ordered him banned for seven years. BCSC staff sought a 15 year ban.

In its decision, the hearing panel noted that it considered Golic’s misconduct to be on the serious end, noting that the trial court judge made findings that it determined to be aggravating factors, namely that he “purposefully avoided the securities regulatory requirements”; and, that he “was instrumental in the running of a call center or ‘boiler room’ for the sales of securities.”

The hearing panel also noted that he “has a prior conviction for a similar securities related offence; and Golic threatened a witness in the Provincial Court trial that is the basis of this application”; adding that “We find both of these convictions to be significant aggravating factors. It is clear that Golic had been made aware of the seriousness of securities regulatory requirements (through his prior conviction), yet he continued to display a wanton disregard for those rules.”

The panel noted no mitigating factors. However, it also observed that “there has been no finding of misconduct”, such as fraud, or misrepresentation, in addition to the securities law violations that were upheld in court.

It also found that in similar cases, these sorts of breaches, involving similarly small amounts of money and a small number of investors, have generally resulted in market bans of between less than a year on the lower end, to three to five years on the higher end. Given the aggravating factors in this case, it decided on a seven-year ban.