The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered a man who perpetrated one of the province’s largest investment frauds to pay the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) annual payments from two of his registered accounts.
Earle Pasquill, who owes the BCSC $36.7 million, must forfeit to the regulator any payments from his two life income fund (LIF) accounts, the BCSC said in a release on Friday.
The LIF accounts totalled $551,349 as of April 2024, and Pasquill withdraws about $75,000 annually from the accounts, the release said.
“Any payments the BCSC receives from [the LIFs] will be made available to victims of the fraud,” the regulator said in the release.
The decision follows amendments in 2023 to B.C.’s Pension Benefits Standards Act and the Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act to make clear that certain pension-derived funds aren’t exempt from enforcement processes, the release said.
In 2014, a BCSC panel found that Pasquill and Michael Lathigee, who jointly directed and controlled the Freedom Investment Club, defrauded investors of $21.7 million in 2008 through a real estate development scheme.
Pasquill is liable for that amount as well as an administrative penalty of $15 million.
He has paid none of the sanctions, the release said.
In 2023, the commission sought to collect sanctions from Pasquill’s wife using amendments to B.C. securities legislation that took effect in 2020.
Those amendments allow the regulator to collect against relatives who receive property from fraudsters for less than market value, including property transfers that occur before the misconduct.