The Ontario Securities Commission has reached another settlement agreement with a fund manager in its ongoing investigation of trading ahead of private placements.

The OSC announced Wednesday that James Anderson, partner, director and junior portfolio manager at Savoy Capital Management Ltd., acknowledged that after being invited to participate in a private placement of shares of Bioscrypt Inc. that he shorted the company’s shares.

The deal follows a similar agreement reached this month with a former RBC fund manager, brokerage house Paradigm Capital and a Paradigm salesman and also involving Bioscrypt stock.

Regulators are investigating this sort of trading on the basis that it could constitute a form of insider trading, since private placements are usually not generally disclosed, and are typically priced at a discount, giving shorts an opportunity to make a near certain profit.

The OSC ordered that Anderson’s registration be suspended for six months, that he cease trading for six months, except for his RRSP, that he be reprimanded and prohibited from acting as a director or officer of an issuer for six months and ordered him to pay $15,000 toward the costs of the investigation.

The OSC noted that ordinarily a more severe sanction would have been called for but there were mitigating factors. They included Anderson’s admissions of responsibility, his inexperience at the time of the conduct in question since he had only been in the industry for six months, courses taken since the conduct to improve his education and the fact that no profit was made personally by Anderson or his employer as a result of the trades.

In approving the settlement, the commission stressed that it is “fundamental to the integrity of the capital markets that registrants adhere to the highest standards when dealing with material information which has not been generally disclosed and that the conduct engaged in by Mr. Anderson undermines the level playing field which the commission seeks to foster for all investors.”