A Victoria resident barred from trading securities in British Columbia will appear before regulators in Ontario later this month.
Larry Keith Davis, who used money from an investor to pay personal bills, finds himself barred from trading securities after the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) had ruled against him earlier this year.
The case against Davis, whom the BCSC also fined $15,000, also drew the attention of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in early 2017. The OSC is Canada’s largest securities regulator in Canada, whose jurisdiction includes the Toronto Stock Exchange.
RELATED: Victoria resident barred from trading securities for fraud
RELATED: Former Olympic rower Harold Backer pleads guilty to fraud
While Ontarian regulators held back their case against Davis to let proceedings unfold in British Columbia, the case is now back before the OSC with a hearing date scheduled for Dec. 12. The OSC is seeking what it calls an “inter-jurisdictional enforcement order” against Davis.
The BCSC ruling against Davis stems from events that date to back to June 2011, when he sold 40,000 shares of a company to the investor for $4,000. In April 2012, he sold another 30,000 shares for $3,000. An investigation though revealed that Davis did not own any shares in the company at the time of either investment or at any subsequent time.
“When the investor began asking for her money back in April 2013, Davis repeatedly refused her requests, claiming that her investments were in shares tied to the stock market,” the commission said in a release.
RELATED: Missing Olympian turns himself in to Victoria Police
RELATED: Lawsuit seeks restitution from former Olympic Rower
While the investor never received any shares from Davis, she eventually succeeded received her money through small claim courts — at a considerable cost though.
“While the amount of the fraud in this case and Davis’ enrichment were not substantial, the harm suffered by the investor was significant,” reads the ruling. “She was deprived of her funds for several years and eventually forced to seek recourse to the courts for their recovery. She was also negatively impacted emotionally and testified at the liability hearing that she had not invested since.”
BCSC in June 2016 found Davis liable for fraud in the amount of $7,000 contrary to provincial regulations. An appeal by Davis against his life-time ban and penalty for $15,000 failed, leading to the commission’s final ruling.
Its conditions prohibit Davis from any professional dealing in securities, with the proviso that Davis may trade or purchase securities for his own account.
Davis, according to the ruling, attempted but did not complete the educational requirements for working with securities, because he began working in 1987 in a small firm. When authorities interviewed Davis in December 2013 as part of their investigation, Davis told them that he ceased to be active in the industry about one and a half to two years before.
