A hearing panel of the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada has reserved its decision on the question of whether an enforcement case against a branch manager should proceed or not.
After an in-person hearing held in Halifax Thursday, a hearing panel of the MFDA’s Atlantic Regional Council reserved its judgment on a motion brought by the respondent in the case, Gabriele Gentile, and advised that it will issue its decision and written reasons “in due course”.
Back in December 2011, the MFDA launched an enforcement action against Gentile, a branch manager in the Halifax office of Desjardins Financial Security Investments Inc., accusing him of supervisory failures. The case has not yet been heard and the allegations have not been proven.
Indeed, Gentile is seeking to have the case dismissed before it gets to a hearing, on the basis that his supervisory obligations only extended to employees of the fund dealer, and the person he’s accused of not properly supervising was an insurance agent, and not an employee of the dealer. He also argues that it could be improperly treading on the turf of insurance regulators.
Regulatory gaps can create client risks
MFDA enforcement staff maintain that it has jurisdiction in the case and that the proceeding is properly constituted. It says that the case merits a full hearing, and that determining whether the facts in the case fall under the scope of a branch manager’s responsibilities “is an important and viable question going to the merits of this proceeding.”