The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has settled with the head of an investment fund manager over personal trading that the regulator took issue with.

The OSC announced that it has entered a settlement agreement with Louis Michael Kovacs, president and CEO of investment manager, Harvest Portfolio Group Inc. (HPG), who admits that he acted contrary to the public interest by trading in his discount brokerage account that facilitated a buyback by one of HPG’s funds, and that he violated securities law by failing to file his insider trading reports.

According to the settlement, Kovacs maintained that his breaches were inadvertant, and that the correlation between his personal trading and the firm’s buyback trading “was the result of habit and convenience”.

Additionally, the settlement notes that changes have been made to the HPG’s policies to prevent similar conduct; and, the firm also hired a new chief compliance officer.

In settling the case, Kovacs agreed to a voluntary payment of $15,000, comprised of a $10,000 penalty and $5,000 in costs, and that his personal trading be pre-cleared by HPG’s new head of compliance for a year.