A British Columbia court has rejected an appeal from a fraudster who owes $36.7 million to the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) in monetary sanctions stemming an investment fraud, and had been seeking to shield the required distributions from his retirement accounts from the regulator.
The Court of Appeal for B.C. dismissed an appeal from Earle Douglas Pasquill, seeking to overturn a 2024 decision by the B.C. Supreme Court that ordered him to forfeit the mandatory annual withdrawal payments from his life income accounts (LIFs) to the BCSC to help satisfy the large enforcement sanctions imposed on him in 2014.
According to the court’s decision, Pasquill argued that the LIF payments should be exempt from being seized based on protections provided under pension legislation.
The lower court issued a forfeiture order against the LIF payouts, finding that the payments fell under an exception from the pension protections. The appeal court agreed.
The regulator reports that Pasquill hasn’t made any payments towards the $36.7 million — $21.7 million in disgorgement and $15 million in penalties — ordered against him. A regulatory hearing panel found that he defrauded investors through the Freedom Investment Club, which raised $21.7 million from almost 700 investors.
The BCSC said that any payments it receives from Pasquill will be made available to victims of the fraud.
The appeal court also rejected a cross appeal by the BCSC, which sought to have a receiver appointed in the case to administer the LIF accounts and direct the payments to the commission.
“The cross appeal is dismissed because the powers the [regulator] seeks to have granted to the receiver extend beyond the authority to attach payments from the LIF accounts,” the court said. “There is no basis to conclude that the forfeiture order as it stands will not be effective in securing those payments.”