B.C. man, company pay $200K to regulator in insider trading settlement

A Vancouver man and his company have jointly paid $200,000 to B.C.'s financial markets regulator as part of an insider trading settlement.

The B.C. Securities Commission announced the settlement with Robert John Lawrence and Tavistock Capital Corp. in a news release Friday. 

Lawrence and Tavistock were among several men and companies accused of participating in what the BCSC called a "$50 million scheme that was contrary to the public interest." 

A hearing for the remaining accused in the case is scheduled for September.

According to the commission, Tavistock purchased $625,000 worth of shares in a company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange as part of a private placement. The company is not named in the BCSC release or the settlement agreement.

Around the same time that it purchased the shares, Tavistock entered into a consulting agreement with the issuer, for which it received consulting fees. The company issuing the shares paid most of the money it raised back to the purchasers – including Tavistock – as consulting fees, but did not disclose this fact publicly, according to the BCSC.

Tavistock then sold the shares it had purchased through the private placement for roughly $285,000, the commission said.

As a consultant, Tavistock was in a "special relationship" with the company that issued the shares and had information about the company's use of the funds that was not generally known. That's a violation of the insider trading provision of B.C.'s Securities Act, according to the BCSC.

Lawrence and his company co-operated with the BCSC's investigation and admitted to their misconduct in the settlement agreement, something the commission described as a mitigating factor in the case.

Also mitigating was the fact that neither Lawrence nor Tavistock had any previous history of securities-related discipline.

In addition to agreeing to pay $200,000 to the BCSC, Lawrence and Tavistock also agreed to three-year bans on purchasing securities or exchange contracts from any companies with which they have special relationships, as defined in the Securities Act.