A Vancouver man has been banned for life, and ordered to pay almost $2.3 million in fines and disgorgement in connection with a foreign exchange trading scheme, the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) announced on Monday.
A BCSC hearing panel ordered Roy Ping Bai (aka Ping Bai) be permanently banned from the markets, fined $1 million, and ordered to pay $1.29 million in disgorgement, after it found that he defrauded investors.
Earlier this year, the panel found that Bai and his firm, RBP Consulting, raised $1.53 million from investors to trade foreign exchange. However, the panel found that only $129,000 was deposited into a trading account; while the rest was used for “other purposes.”
“Bai’s own testimony suggested that he lacks any appreciation of the deceitful nature of his misconduct. According to his testimony, he was entitled to utilize funds provided by investors in any manner that he deemed appropriate,” the panel stated in its reasons.
“In addition, Bai’s behavior during the relevant period demonstrated his ongoing and sustained failure to recognize his misconduct. Having misappropriated significant sums from investors for his own enrichment, he then engaged in a series of lies about his business, carried out over a two year time period, designed to hide his misconduct. Bai admitted that he had been deceitful but purported to justify that deceit by stating that he was trying to buy time to find a way to repay investors,” the panel said.
In addition to the sanctions against Bai, RBP Consulting was also permanently banned.