The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) will hold a hearing on November 24 to hear an appeal from a former investment dealer rep regarding the penalties imposed by a hearing panel of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) earlier this year.
The OSC said it will hear an appeal in the case of Julian Ricci, who is seeking to overturn the penalty decision of an IIROC hearing panel back in June.
Ricci, a former registered representative with the Burlington branch of Macquarie Private Wealth Inc. (now Richardson GMP), was banned for two years and fined $200,000 after a hearing panel found that he inflated the net worth of several clients in order to allow them to use greater quantities of leverage than his firm’s suitability requirements would allow. (See Former rep fined $200,000 for falsifying suitability information, investmentexecutive.com, June 18, 2014.)
According to the application from Ricci, he believes that the 24-month suspension imposed on him is “overly harsh in the circumstances,” and inconsistent with similar cases.
Ricci also argues that he had already effectively served a lengthy suspension, while the enforcement process played out; that the panel overlooked evidence from his character witnesses; and, that it erred by not allowing him to make an oral statement at the end of the hearing on his own behalf.