An MFDA hearing panel has banned and fined a former advisor $100,000 for misappropriating funds and failing to cooperate during an investigation.
Between about November 2011 and April 2012, Brenda Marie Douglas (who was an MFDA-registered advisor with Scotia Securities Inc. at the time) redeemed more than $31,600 from a client’s RRIF account, says the hearing panel’s reasons for decision. The client, Douglas’s 70-year-old retired father, was unaware of the redemptions, the document says.
During the MFDA’s investigation into her conduct, Douglas failed to cooperate, the SRO says. Among other things, she failed to provide the investigator with copies of her bank statements and attend scheduled interviews, says the reasons for decision.
In the document, the hearing panel says that the funds misappropriation “should attract substantial fines.” The father was “an unsophisticated and vulnerable investor” who relied on Douglas for help, it says, adding that the father was a widower whose wife had taken care of the couple’s finances. In addition to the fine and ban, Douglas must pay costs of $7,500.
Scotiabank reimbursed the client for his loss, says the reasons for decision, and Douglas hasn’t been registered with the MFDA since June 2014.
For more details, read the MFDA hearing panel’s reasons for decision.