West Vancouver lawyer banned from B.C.’s investment market, financial regulator says

The B.C. Securities Commission logo in an undated file photo.

A West Vancouver lawyer has been permanently banned from practicing in B.C.’s investment market after allegedly generating over a billion dollars from illegal stock sales in the U.S.

In a news release Tuesday, the B.C. Securities Commission confirmed Frederick Langford Sharp, along with several associates, was named by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a defendant in a 2021 civil complaint in federal court.

According to the SEC judgement, it’s alleged that Sharp was the mastermind of a complex scheme from 2011 to 2019.

The SEC said Sharp and his associates “enabled control persons of penny stock companies, whose stock was publicly traded in the U.S. securities markets, to conceal their control and ownership of huge amounts of penny stock and then surreptitiously dump the stock into the U.S. markets.”

It’s said Sharp used various schemes including using offshore trading platforms, encrypted communications, and an accounting system to keep track of his clients’ stocks.

He allegedly generated over $1 billion in gross proceeds from the fraudulent scheme.

However, Sharp did not participate in the civil proceeding and in May 2022, the court entered a final judgement against him.

Sharp was ordered to pay over $50 million in monetary relief.

The BCSC said Sharp is also facing related criminal charges in U.S. federal court.

He has been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud.

The BCSC said it will be banning Sharp from several acts including trading in or purchasing any securities or derivatives, becoming or acting as a registrant or promoter and engaging in promotional activities on his own behalf.

The BCSC said so far Sharp has not provided any evidence or submissions.