(May 1 – 16:05 ET) – The Toronto Stock Exchange Inc. has settled a discipline case with Yorkton Securities’ head trader Pier Donnini.
Under a settlement, Donnini agrees to pay a fine of $20,000; pay $5,000 towards the cost of the exchange’s investigation; and rewrite and pass the Trader’s Training Course by July 24.
A hearing committee panel of the TSE approved the settlement back on April 25, with Donnini admitting to three separate trading violations. He admitted that:
- on January 14, 2000, he failed to move the market in an orderly manner in executing a trade that caused a change greater than $1 in the price of a security that was selling below $20;
- on Sept. 14, 2000, he improperly triggered a Registered Trader’s Minimum Guaranteed Fill requirement by splitting a single client order to buy shares of a listed security into several smaller orders and entering these orders as MGF-eligible orders; and
- on Jan. 3, 2001, he received a client order to sell less than 5,000 shares of a listed security and executed the order in a principal transaction at a price that was not higher than the price of any order on any Canadian stock exchange.
The TSE says that prior to the January 3 incident, Donnini had received warnings from its Market Surveillance department for three separate violations of this rule. In light of this latest violation, he was contacted by a market surveillance officer. Donnini cancelled the original trade and re-executed the order at a price that complied with the rules.
The TSE will not be going after Yorkton in this case. It says that following a review of the findings of the investigation, the TSE Regulation Services Division has determined that there are no grounds for any disciplinary action against Yorkton.