Violations range from conflicts of interest to cutting and pasting clients' signatures
The MFDA has approved three settlement hearings, with the most serious resulting in a $25,000 fine.
Stephen Cragg must also pay $5,000 costs and complete the Ethics and Professional Conduct Course offered by the IFSE Institute, or an industry course acceptable to the MFDA, within six months of the acceptance of the settlement agreement.
He admitted engaging in personal financial dealings with a client that gave rise to a conflict or potential conflict of interest that he did not disclose and making false and misleading statements during the course of an investigation by his member firm. In response to a supervisory inquiry, he also submitted a document relating to his personal financial dealings with a client, upon which he signed the client’s signature.
Meanwhile, Gary Sexton was fined $12,500 – and must pay costs of $2,500 – after admitting that, between February 2012 and February 2018, he, or his assistants for whom he was responsible, obtained, possessed, and used to process transactions, 29 pre-signed account forms in respect of 24 clients.
Also, between February 2012 and December 2017, he, or his assistants for whom he was responsible, altered 37 account forms in respect of 35 clients by altering information on the account forms without having the client initial the alterations.
Finally, Samuel Bilton was fined $13,500 – and must pay costs of $2,500 – after admitting his cut and pasted client signatures from copies of account forms previously signed by two clients onto two new account forms, and submitted the account forms for processing. He also falsely represented to the member firm in question that two clients had signed account forms, when he had actually cut and pasted the clients’ signatures.
