A former Sprott Securities Inc. trader has been fined $50,000 and suspended from access to the Toronto Stock Exchange for three months as part of a settlement reached with Market Regulation Services Inc.

RS said the settlement with Garrett Steven Prins concerning insider-trading allegations also requires that he pay $15,000 towards the cost of RS’s investigation.

RS alleged that between Nov.22, 2001 and July 18, 2002, Prins tipped off fellow traders at his former firm (Griffiths McBurney & Partners), Frank Greco and Donald Greco, about pending trades, allowing them to front run the trades. Six different clients were affected, most were large institutional clients. The total losses sustained by the clients were about $3,500. There was no financial benefit to Prins.

“Knowledge of a client order not yet entered into the marketplace is information not known by the marketplace in general,” RS said. “By a trader passing such information on to another trader and by that other trader taking advantage of that information to trade ahead of the client order, the integrity of the marketplace is harmed.”

RS also concluded that there are no grounds for any disciplinary proceedings against Sprott Securities Inc. There are allegations pending against the Grecos.