The Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada announced Aug. 12 that it has entered into a settlement agreement with former Royal Mutual Funds Inc. advisor, Han Liu, fining Liu $12,500 plus costs totaling $2,500 after he admitted he used photocopied signatures to complete additional forms for clients.
In the settlement agreement, Liu admitted that between January 2018 and February 2019 he photocopied signature pages from account forms that had been previously signed by clients and reused the signature pages to complete 14 additional forms for four different clients. The forms in question included contribution acknowledgement forms, registered plan withdrawal forms and redemption acknowledgment forms.
Royal Mutual Funds identified one of the account forms during an onsite branch review. A subsequent review of all Liu’s client files identified the remaining account forms. Registered in the mutual funds industry since 2008, Lui was terminated by Royal Mutual funds in March 2019, and is not currently registered in the securities industry in any capacity. During a review of his client files in the following month, no clients reported any concerns to the firm. The MFDA says there is no evidence of any client loss or that the transactions were unauthorized.
