The Nova Scotia Securities Commission (NSSC) has fined and permanently banned a one-time mutual fund rep for defrauding investors.
Following a hearing on sanctions, a regulatory hearing panel ordered that Wesley William Robinson and his company, DRR900306 NS Ltd., are banned from the industry.
The panel also ordered Robinson and the firm to pay a penalty of $500,000 and costs of $25,000 after finding that they engaged in unregistered trading and unfair practices that defrauded investors.
The NSSC said it will also apply to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia for an order requiring Robinson and the company to make restitution to harmed investors.
The ruling followed the NSSC’s decision in August last year, which found that Robinson and his company committed multiple securities law violations.
“These violations included the perpetration of multiple frauds, one of the most serious offences in the Act,” the panel said in its decision, noting that it, “found that the respondents’ schemes were designed to delude the [investors] and were based on numerous misrepresentations.”
The schemes took more than $1 million from investors, whose funds “were used for the respondents’ personal expenses and other purposes.”
The decision also pointed out that this is not Robinson’s first run-in with regulators.
It said that, back in 1997, Robinson had his registration as a fund rep cancelled and he was suspended for two years after the commission found he had violated regulatory “fair dealing standards” by “recklessly disregarding and placing his own interests ahead of the interests of a client.”