(December 20 – 17:30 ET) – A hearing committee panel of the Toronto Stock Exchange has fined a registered rep $20,000 for unfair trading.

The TSE and Nirvaan Merharchand of Peters & Co. Limited agreed to a settlement that sees Merharchand pay a fine of $20,000 and $3,500 toward the costs of the investigation.

The TSE says that on four occasions between April 16, 1999 and September 21, 1999, Merharchand executed two cross-trade buys from his inventory with a Peters client that were executed exactly at the current bid price, and two similar sells with clients that were executed at the offer price.

Since these customer-principal trades were not executed within the spread they violated TSE rules. In each case the TSE caught the trades and they were cancelled and Merharchand was advised by a Market Surveillance Officer that the trades were offside.

The TSE says that following a review of its investigation, it has determined that there are no grounds for any disciplinary action against Peters & Co.
-IE Staff