(August 1- 15:30 ET) – Buying and selling stocks for clients with a record of U.S. securities violations earned a Vancouver investment dealer a 20-year ban.
The British Columbia Securities Commission has also prohibited Jean Claude Hauchecorne from acting as a director or officer of any issuer and from engaging in investor relations activities for 20 years. Hauchecorne must also pay the costs of the commission hearing.
In its decision, the BCSC describes Hauchecorne’s conduct as dishonest, representing an utter failure to meet his responsibility as a “gatekeeper” for the market. It was later found that Hauchecorne’s clients had ties to organized crime.
Hauchecorne was an experienced broker who failed to discharge his responsibilities under the know your client rule, the commission said.
“The Know Your Client rule is described in the Conduct and Practices Handbook as the ‘Cardinal Rule.’ Compliance by registrants with both the letter and the spirit of the rule is essential to their responsibility to act in the best interests of their clients and to uphold the integrity of the market. Hauchecorne has been found to have deliberately ignored this fundamental principle.”
The commission’s ban follows the Canadian Venture Exchange’s 1999 decision that Hauchecorne breached the know your client rule by accepting orders from persons that he knew or ought to have known had histories of securities violations in the United States and were associated with organized crime.
The CDNX permanently removed Hauchecorne’s right to act as a broker, fined him $200,000 and ordered him to give up $95,000 in commissions and pay the costs of the exchange hearing.
-IE Staff