Dealing rep also given $50,000 fine after evading regulator for almost two years
The MFDA has fined a former securities dealer $50,000 and permanently banned him from securities related business for failing to cooperate with an investigation.
Jay Kim spent nearly two years dodging the regulators as it tried to investigate his role in a loan application based on falsified documents. From November, 2016, to November, 2018, the MFDA used mail, email, voice messages, and even sent a process server to try to reach him. Kim’s only reply denied any involvement in the loan application.
An MFDA hearing concluded that his lack of cooperation contravened section 22.1 of by-law no. 1.
While a securities dealer at Shah Financial Planning in Oakville, Ontario, during March of 2015, Kim submitted a $200,000 loan application on behalf of Neil Kumar. That application included fabricated documents claiming that Kumar held more than $100,000 in assets at Sun Life Financial and close to $150,000 at WFG securities, where Kim had worked from 2010 to 2012. Kumar held no assets at either institution.
A separate MFDA hearing found that Kumar submitted other falsified loan applications for himself, arranged for two other individuals to submit falsified applications, and processed a falsified application for a client.
In November of 2016, the MFDA mailed Kim requesting that he co-operate with their investigation into his role in this loan application. He didn’t reply. Kim did reply to their second letter by email in December of 2016, but only denied his involvement in the loan application. He then failed to reply to the MFDA’s subsequent five attempts to contact him, which included sending a process server who couldn’t track Kim down.
Kim’s failure to co-operate with the investigation meant that the MFDA couldn’t fully determine role in the falsified loan application. They found that his nearly two years without communication counted as a violation of his obligation to co-operate with the MFDA’s investigation.
In addition to the $50,000 fine and lifetime ban, Kim was ordered to pay $5,000 in costs.
