CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story failed to note the prohibition against Gilles Latour is for work outside Equity Associates Inc. only. Seaway News and TC Media apologize for the error.
CORNWALL, Ontario – A man at the centre of a Cornwall fraud investigation has been saddled with an interim prohibition from some kinds of work in the securities industry.
At a Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) hearing Friday in Toronto Gilles Latour was handed an interim suspension and must reappear in the provincial capital to continue with his hearing Nov. 11.
The prohibition covers work, including securities-related activities, outside Equity Associates Inc., a member of the MFDA.
Parties made submissions before a three-person panel Friday but the matter was adjourned.
The MFDA had issued a so-called Notice of Application against Latour, who was charged by police weeks ago with fraud, theft by conversion, false pretenses and breach of trust.
“The charges against Latour are likely to bring the capital markets into disrepute,” the MFDA said in its notice.
Hugh Corbett, the managing director of enforcement for the MFDA, said prior to Friday’s hearing his agency has found four more clients, in addition to the two who sparked the charges by Cornwall police.
“Other people have put up their hands and said ‘Me too,'” he said.
Court documents suggest the two complainants associated with the Cornwall police charges are missing $201,000.
But the MFDA said in its notice even more money is involved in the investigation, from different people.
“(The clients) allege that Latour borrowed in total $615,946 from them which he has failed to repay fully or at all,” reads the MFDA notice. “There is a reasonable possibility that Latour’s indebtedness to these known individuals and to any other unknown individuals may lead him to obtain additional monies from clients and other individuals in order to repay all or part of his existing indebtedness, or to finance the activities that gave rise to his need to borrow monies in the first place.”
Corbett made a distinction between the work his agency has done and the criminal matter undertaken by police, but said both groups have been in contact during their respective investigations.
The MFDA is the self-regulatory organization for Canadian mutual fund dealers, overseeing the operations, standards of practice and business conduct of its 108 members and their approximately 80,000 approved persons with a mandate to protect investors and the public interest.
None of the allegations against Latour, criminal or otherwise, have been proven.
