CSA’s enforcement report reveals greater jail time for offenders — but fewer overall proceedings and less in fines and penalties.

In 2016, more than 23 years of jail time were handed down to 15 offenders for Securities Act violations. That compares to about 10 years of jail time handed down last year.

Further, 13 people were found guilty under the Criminal Code. Nine people were sent to jail for six months to four years, totalling more than 16 years of hard time.

Read: Repeat offender arrested after JSOT Alberta investigation

Concluded matters

An aggregate of 109 cases concluded in 2016, compared to 145 in 2015.

These included 168 individuals and 94 companies, for a total of 262 respondents. (Individual proceedings aren’t necessarily connected to the 109 concluded cases.)

That compares to 233 individuals and 117 companies (350 respondents ) in 2015.

Illegal distributions remains the top offence, followed by fraud. Misconduct by registrants continues to drop significantly, falling to 8 respondents from 20 in 2015 and 41 in 2014.

Fines and penalties for offences total more than $62 million, compared to more than $138 million in 2015. The 2016 total includes voluntary payments of about $15 million resulting from no-contest settlements, which were introduced by the OSC in 2014. Those cases resulted in about $320 million in investor compensation.

Read: Two people permanently banned, fined $2.4 million each

Proceedings commenced

There were 56 proceedings commenced involving 72 people and 72 companies. That compares to 108 proceeding commenced in 2015 involving 165 people and 101 companies.

The top three offences were illegal distributions (82 respondents), fraud (23) and “other” cases (15), followed closely by illegal insider trading (12).

Ten cases were commenced under the Criminal Code.

In a release, Louis Morisset, CSA chair and president and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers, says CSA continues to address emerging issues, like the threat of binary options investing. Further, CSA is developing a new national market analytics software program to identify potential misconduct.

Read the full report.

Also read: Don’t miss important compliance reminders