A court in British Columbia has ordered securities regulators to produce documents and answer questions from a former registered rep who was banned from the industry in 2009 and is seeking to clear his name.
The Supreme Court of B.C. has partially granted an application from Scott Lower, a former rep with Global Securities Corp., ordering the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) to provide him with the documents and answers he seeks as part of an ongoing legal action commenced last year and set for a summary trial in May.
IIROC banned Lower in 2009 and fined him $50,000 after a hearing panel found he refused to cooperate with a regulatory investigation by failing to attend a mandatory interview with IIROC investigators.
According to the Court, in 2018 he commenced a legal action seeking to clear his name, arguing that he refused to attend the interview based on concerns about the investigation’s fairness.
The Court’s decision says Lower alleged that IIROC “failed to provide notice of the specific matters under investigation, breached its disclosure obligations, selectively collected and withheld important documents including exculpatory information, pressured [him] into providing information at the voluntary interview, misrepresented the nature of the voluntary interview, improperly cooperated with the RCMP to try to obtain information in a voluntary interview which could be used in the police investigation after Mr. Lower asserted his right to remain silent, and in general acted unfairly and in bad faith.”
The Court says in its decision that IIROC denied the allegations, arguing that it operated fairly, that Lower was disciplined for failing to cooperate with an investigation, and that his opportunities to appeal that finding had expired. “IIROC also alleges this action is an abuse of process and a collateral attack on the disciplinary decision,” it says.
The allegations haven’t been proven. The Court has ordered IIROC to provide Lower with documents relating to its investigation, as well as responses to certain questions that it declined to answer during discovery.
“The scope of and steps taken, and information available to investigators during the investigation may be relevant to whether there was procedural fairness,” the Court said in its decision.
The Court denied Lower’s request to cross-examine an IIROC litigator, saying that he didn’t prove it was necessary.
Says the decision: “There is no material evidence that has been identified as in dispute, it has not been established how the cross-examination may be relevant to the outcome of the summary trial application, or how the cross-examination will serve a useful purpose in terms of eliciting evidence that would assist in determining the issue.”