The B.C. Securities Commission reported Tuesday that it has settled with a company director who admitted to creating a misleading appearance of trading activity through wash trades in company shares.

Timothy Brock has agreed to pay the commission $20,000 and he has been barred from trading for six years except for his personal account. Under the settlement, he is also prohibited from being a director or officer of any public company for five years.

Brock, a director in Tree Brewing Co. Ltd., Great Western Minerals Group Ltd. and War Eagle Mining Co. Inc., admitted that between Nov. 1, 1997 and Nov. 30, 2000, he participated in 37 separate trades in the shares of the three companies in which he was, at the same time, the buyer and the seller — a practice known as wash trading.

Brock also failed to file insider reports for 414 trades in the shares of these companies.

In mitigating the sanctions that otherwise would have applied to Brock for his breaches of the Securities Act, the Executive Director took into account that Brock did not profit from the trades and that the wash trades did not appear to have affected share prices.