The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) has banned a man from the markets for two years after it found that he lied to commission investigators about his stake in an offshore brokerage account that bought shares in a company where he served as a director.

A BCSC panel found that Rudolph Walter Brenner breached securities laws when he lied to BCSC staff about his relationship to a trading account held by Muscatine Financial Corp., which is a company controlled by the Brenner Family Trust (Brenner is a beneficiary of the trust, based in Lichtenstein).

According to the panel’s decision, after the commission was alerted to possible suspicious trading in shares of Hellix Ventures Inc. by Austrian regulators, it sent an order to Brenner seeking information about his accounts. Brenner was a director of Hellix. The decision indicates he reported information about his Canadian accounts, but did not mention the Muscatine account. Eventually, after repeated enquiries, Brenner’s counsel admitted his connection to the Muscatine trading account, it says.

The panel concluded that Brenner lied to the commission, and that he did not file required insider reports regarding the sale of Hellix shares in the Muscatine brokerage account. “Brenner repeatedly gave false and misleading information to the investigator with the intent of hindering or frustrating the investigation. Brenner’s misconduct was serious, went to the heart of the commission’s investigation and involved a repetition of prior misconduct,” it said.

Nevertheless, the decision also notes that there is no evidence that the trading in Hellix shares was illegal, or that anyone suffered losses. And, it says that, while the misconduct was deemed serious, Brenner was not accused of fraud or obstruction of justice.

Brenner did not appear at the hearing and was not represented by counsel either.

BCSC staff sought a six-year trading ban and a $50,000 penalty for the violations. But the panel ordered that Brenner be banned from trading, registration, acting as a director or officer, or working in investor relations, for two years; and that he pay an administrative penalty of $30,000.