More than $20-million in investment-related fines have gone uncollected in Ontario since 2008, and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada is asking the provincial government for legal changes to improve collection efforts.
In a presentation towards the province’s standing committee on finance and economic affairs Monday, IIROC leader Andrew Kriegler asked for an amendment towards the Securities Act (Ontario) to give the regulator the ability to enforce sanction meted out by its hearing panels through the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
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IIROC, the national self-regulatory agency for the investment industry, routinely collects all fines levied against companies, but often hardly any from individuals, he said.
“Sometimes these people don’t have any assets, but individual rule-breakers often evade payment simply by ceasing to be an IIROC registrant,” Kriegler said in prepared remarks to become presented to the government committee during pre-budget consultations.
“In Ontario, we’ve no ability to collect beyond that point C it doesn’t matter what they have done, or how much cash they owe.”
The situation is different in Alberta and Quebec, where those provincial securities acts give IIROC broader powers to pursue wrongdoers.
“Unsurprisingly, our collection rates in those two provinces are considerably higher than our national rate,” Kriegler said.
Just two per cent of the fines imposed so far this fiscal year happen to be collected in Ontario. The province accounts for 61 percent from the total amount of remarkable fines on the national basis, he explained.
Fine money collected by IIROC is used to aid investor education and fund the administration of disciplinary hearing panels.
