The BC Court of Appeal has rejected an effort to appeal a decision of the BC Securities Commission on various grounds, saying that the appeal appears likely to fail.

The appellant, Michael James Savage, was seeking leave to appeal a decision of the BCSC, “which found that he had contravened various provisions of the Securities Act, in connection with an entity that never came into existence, but in which he purported to sell securities.”

“The more important proposed ground of appeal from Mr. Savage’s point of view relates to disclosure,” the decision notes, adding that he claimed that the commission had not met the standard of full disclosure… denying him the right to a full defence.

“It seems to me that having told the panel that he had received disclosure of the documents he wanted, and given that counsel for the executive director did not refer to any other documents of which disclosure was not made, Mr. Savage’s complaints about disclosure are bound to fail,” it finds.

The decision says other proposed grounds for appeal include alleged errors of law, and failure to properly apply the “pragmatic and functional test to determine the appropriate standard of review”.

The court found these arguments wanting as well. “It will be apparent that in my opinion, Mr. Savage’s purported grounds of appeal are very unlikely to succeed at any appeal,” it concludes, adding that the proposed grounds aren’t “matters of general importance”, do not raise viable questions of law, and no clear benefit is to be derived from the appeal.

“Mr. Savage’s allegations about ‘abuse of process’, ‘procedural flaws’ and ‘highly selective disclosure’ seem highly exaggerated. He is unable to suggest exactly what documents had not been disclosed by the commission and he has no specific complaint about any of the commission’s factual findings,” it says, dismissing the application.