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A regulatory hearing panel has fined and suspended a former rep who paid clients to get their complaints to go away, among other violations.

An Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) hearing panel sanctioned Alberto Storelli, a former rep with Global Maxfin Capital Inc. in Richmond, B.C., for several violations of IIROC rules. These included compensating clients without approval, providing unauthorized account statements to clients and making misrepresentations to the self-regulatory organization’s enforcement staff.

The panel suspended Storelli for four years, fined him $50,000 and ordered him to pay $10,000 in costs.

The sanctions follow allegations that Storelli made secret payments to clients in an effort to cover up complaints against him, that he provided clients with account statements that contained false information regarding the value of private shares, and that he misled IIROC enforcement staff and failed to provide them with information they requested.

Storelli resigned from his firm in 2017 and he has not been registered with IIROC since then.