An Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) hearing panel has ordered market bans and monetary penalties against a pair of men who engaged in unregistered trading and illegal distributions when they helped sell limited partnership units for an exempt market dealer without being registered.
The OSC ordered that Devon Ricketts be banned from trading for five years, banned from registration for seven years, that he disgorge $177,094, pay an administrative penalty of $30,000, and costs of over $20,000. It also ordered that Mark Griffiths should be banned from trading for three years, and from registration for five years, along with $51,000 in disgorgement, a $15,000 penalty, and $22,000 in costs.
Neither of the respondents appeared at the commission’s proceedings against them, which found that they traded without registration and participated in illegal distributions when they helped exempt market dealer, Morgan Dragon Development Corp., raise over $5 million from investors by selling LP units without filing a prospectus. The disgorgement ordered against them represents the commissions they earned for helping to raise investor funds.
MDDC and its “directing minds”, John Cheong and Herman Tse, settled allegations against them by the commission in 2013. In ordering sanctions against Ricketts and Griffiths, the panel said that the penalties “reflect the seriousness of the misconduct that occurred and should deter the respondents and like-minded individuals from engaging in future conduct that violates securities law.”