Ordinary investors received some good news this month, with both the signal that securities regulators are getting serious about rescuing Canada’s reputation for indifferent enforcement and the confirmation that the courts are available to provide the monetary justice that regulators have seldom been able to deliver.

The Ontario Securities Commission is to be commended for launching its enforcement action in a complex, high-profile insider trading case. It has long been suspected that Canada is riddled with illegal insider dealing. Trading data around mergers and acquisitions have always pointed to a high degree of undetected insider trading. Yet, insider-trading cases are notoriously hard to prove.

So, the mere fact that the OSC is taking on a case that it could well lose, and which will certainly attract its share of slings and arrows from the Street, is encouraging evidence that the regulator isn’t afraid of a fight.

The OSC will, of course, be criticized for bringing on this case, which includes both a big-name defendant and a variety of industry players. Such criticism seems to occur whenever a regulator has the guts to challenge questionable but seemingly endemic industry practices — such as high closing, mutual fund market timing and options backdating. The OSC should not be deterred; market integrity and investor confidence are the beneficiaries of its bravery.

That being said, regulators have typically struggled to help investors get their money back when they are wronged. Despite repeated promises to improve investor restitution, Canada’s regulators have yet to come through with anything meaningful on that count.

However, a recent court case confirms that investors don’t have to wait for regulators to sort this out; they can use Canada’s burgeoning class-action industry. The Ontario Court of Appeal has recently ruled that regulatory efforts and class actions are different animals, and investors don’t have to settle for the inadequate justice they typically get from the OSC. As imperfect as the courts are, there is now a clearer path for aggrieved investors who are seeking satisfaction.