The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal of court rulings that upheld the findings and sanctions imposed by Ontario’s Capital Markets Tribunal in an insider trading case involving an investment analyst and an advisor.
The country’s top court denied applications for leave to appeal lower court decisions in the judicial review of the regulatory tribunal’s findings in a case involving allegations that an analyst with Aston Hill Asset Management Inc. tipped others, including an advisor with Aston Hill Securities Inc., about Amaya Gaming Group Inc.’s pending acquisition of PokerStars’ parent company in 2014.
The court denied leave to appeal from Majd Kitmitto, a senior analyst at Aston Hill; the advisor, Donald Alexander Goss; and, Christopher Candusso, a friend of Kitmitto, who was also sanctioned by the tribunal.
In 2022, in a split decision, the majority of the tribunal found that they violated securities rules by breaching the prohibitions on insider trading and tipping.
Following a hearing on sanctions, the panel imposed a 15-year ban on Goss, a 10-year ban on Kitmitto, and a three-year ban on Candusso, along with a combined $3.3 million in disgorgement, penalties, and costs.
They appealed the tribunal’s findings and sanctions to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which rejected those appeals in March last year. And last September, the Court of Appeal for Ontario denied leave to appeal the lower court’s ruling. Now, the Supreme Court has put an end to further appeals.