TD Waterhouse Canada Inc., has agreed to pay the British Columbia Securities Commission $20,000 after admitting it traded securities subject to cease trade orders.
In a settlement, TD Waterhouse admitted that it had executed trades on behalf of clients in the securities of Moneta Porcupine Mines Inc. and Stratcomm Media Ltd. The securities of Moneta and Stratcomm have been cease-traded by the BCSC since September 1990 and November 2000 respectively.
In December 2001, TD Waterhouse was one of a group of investment dealers that reached a settlement with the BCSC in which it was agreed that a system or process would be developed and implemented to prevent registrants from executing client trades of securities under cease trade orders.
In 2002, TD Waterhouse created its own cease trader order database to comply with the settlement. In mid-2004, TD Waterhouse discovered that in the course of its development, it had inadvertently omitted Moneta and Stratcomm from its list of issuers whose securities were subject to cease trade orders. This resulted in the dealer executing trades in the two cease-traded securities since late-September 2002.