Court rules in favour of labour-sponsored venture fund against fund manager

Venard “Lenny” Gaudet of Toronto, a central figure in the collapse of Bay Street brokerage firm Osler Inc. in 1988, has been fined and put on probation after pleading guilty to two new offences, according to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).

Gaudet has been ordered to pay an $800 fine and sentenced to one year of probation with conditions after he admitted to trading without registration and issuing securities without a prospectus. The probation conditions include that he cease trading in securities and to refrain from acting as an officer or director of any issuer.

In 2014, Gaudet was charged after an investigation by the OSC’s Joint Serious Offences Team (JSOT) found that he sold shares in Intrinsic Minerals Ltd. to four investors in July 2012.

The OSC banned Gaudet permanently in 1991 “for his leading role” in a $12-million fraud on Osler, at which he was the chief financial officer. At the time, an OSC panel said that the conduct of Gaudet and two others in the case “was so reprehensible that we have concluded that none of them should ever again be allowed to participate in the capital markets of the province in any way.”

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