Alongside the civil proceedings brought by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) in the Cape Cove Financial Management case, Quebec's Tribunal administratif des marches financiers (TMF) continues to review complaints involving individuals who participated in the scheme. Dany Bergeron is the latest respondent associated with the case to face sanctions from the TMF.
The Insurance Portal does not generally report on sanctions imposed by the TMF for violations of the Securities Act, unless they involve individuals holding certificates in insurance disciplines. This is the case for Dany Bergeron, who served as chair of the board of directors of the Chambre de la sécurité financière (CSF) between 2011 and 2014.
The complaint against the respondent required 17 days of hearings during the first quarter of 2026. Administrative Judge Antonietta Melchiorre rendered her decision on September 24 in a lengthy 86-page ruling comprising 484 paragraphs. The ruling was provided to us by the Autorité after it issued a news release on September 30. At the time of writing, the ruling was not yet publicly available.
Bergeron (certificate No. 102518, NRD No. 1906711) has been ordered to pay administrative penalties totalling $400,000 for violations of the Securities Act. The TMF has revoked all rights conferred by the respondent’s securities registration, in addition to revoking his certificate.
He is now prohibited, for the next five years, from acting as a director or officer of an issuer, dealer, adviser or investment fund manager. During the same period, he is also prohibited from acting as a director, officer or responsible officer of an insurance firm.
The respondent’s certificates and registration rights had been suspended since March 27, 2023.
Background
Bergeron acted as an exempt market dealer representative for Cape Cove. Between May 2018 and July 2021, the company acted as an intermediary in raising $19.7 million from investors through investments in five issuers in the exempt market.
Among them, the Autorité names Agro Tech Ventures 1 and Malina Capital, two companies in which the respondent also served as a director and officer. Bergeron had several of his clients subscribe for securities.
The forensic accounting analysis showed that these clients’ funds were not invested as intended. Instead, the movement of funds displayed characteristics of a Ponzi scheme: payments to some investors were made using funds from new investors rather than returns generated by the investments.
Significant payments were also made to Efstratios Gavriil (also known as Sean Gabriel), as well as to certain members of his family and certain related companies. In July 2024, the Autorité announced that it was paying a total of $9.1 million in compensation to 414 claimants who had suffered financial losses as a result of investments made through Cape Cove. Two additional claims were accepted by the Fonds d’indemnisation des services financiers in 2025-2026.
Based on the evidence submitted by the Autorité, the TMF concluded that Bergeron contravened section 196 of the Securities Act by providing false or misleading information about a securities transaction by failing to disclose Gavriil’s pivotal involvement in the two above-mentioned companies and in Cape Cove. This first violation carries an administrative penalty of $200,000.
A further $200,000 penalty was imposed for his violation of section 197 of the Securities Act for providing his clients with false or misleading information regarding securities transactions. The penalties and other sanctions were recommended by the Autorité, and the TMF endorsed its recommendations.
Lack of integrity
To determine the appropriate measures, the TMF must consider a number of criteria, including the objective seriousness of the violations, the losses suffered by investors and the harm caused to the integrity of the financial markets, the duration and recurrence of the violations, and the respondent’s experience in the financial sector.
Judge Melchiorre notes that the respondent had approximately 60 of his clients subscribe for securities, enabling the issuers to raise a total of $8.9 million. At the Autorité’s request, the two companies were placed under provisional administration on July 8, 2021.
In an email sent to all Cape Cove clients on July 26, 2021, Bergeron provided false or misleading information even though he was aware of the existence of “red flags” in the issuers’ operations. According to the complainant, sending the email “in itself demonstrates his lack of integrity.”
For his part, the respondent maintains that he has “always acted with integrity.” In his view, “the concept of ‘integrity’ on which the Autorité relies refers to malicious, illegal and false acts” associated with “malicious intent,” which he denies. He says that, on the contrary, he cooperated with the Autorité and responded to its requests throughout the process, including arranging a meeting between its investigators and Gavriil as early as 2019.
In this regard, the evidence instead led the TMF to conclude “that the respondent demonstrated resistance and reluctance in providing information to the Autorité.” He sought to give Gavriil a second chance even though Gavriil had been permanently struck from the roll by the CSF’s disciplinary committee. “However, it was not for the respondent to decide that Gavriil’s removal from the roll had lasted long enough.”
The respondent consented to the suspension of his licences during the investigation and believes that he has been deprived of his right to practise for long enough. He maintains that he was forced to sell his book of business at a discount. After finding employment as a teacher at a college, he was dismissed following the publication of articles mentioning his name in connection with the case. He maintains that he himself is a victim of Gavriil, who allegedly “pulled the wool over his eyes.”
In its analysis, the TMF cites a decision rendered in 2021 to reiterate that “the absence of malicious intent is no guarantee of integrity” and that this quality “cannot be compartmentalized or divided according to the disciplines in which a representative practises.” The withdrawal of the right to practise is not imposed to punish the professional, but to protect the public.
Even applying the definition of integrity from another case cited by the respondent, the TMF “concludes that he did not demonstrate uprightness and, above all, did not rigorously comply with rules of law, moral principles and ethical rules.”
Judge Melchiorre then lists a lengthy series of actions by the respondent that were submitted into evidence by the Autorité and that demonstrate “an absence of loyalty, fairness and good faith,” principles set out in section 160 of the Securities Act and section 16 of the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services.
Respondent’s experience
The TMF ruling notes that the respondent holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration, a diploma in insurance and financial services, and a certificate in group insurance and annuities. He has held positions with numerous non-profit organizations as president, vice-president and treasurer.
“The respondent also served for nearly three years as chair of the board of directors of the CSF, an important self-regulatory organization in the financial sector whose mission was to protect the public,” paragraph 383 states.
The respondent was also a member of the Autorité’s advisory committee on representatives’ practices from September 2018 to April 2021. He also served as a director of Authority of real estate brokerage in Québec from November 2019 to April 2021.
The respondent “was a seasoned professional with solid professional experience who was expected to inspire confidence,” the TMF adds, and “he was expected to know his obligations under the legislation applicable to the financial sector.”
Other representatives certified in insurance or as mutual fund dealer representatives have previously been sanctioned by the TMF for their involvement in Cape Cove, including Nick Tzaferis in February 2022, Robert Audet in February 2023, Jean-Christophe Daigneault in April 2023 and Claude Dufour in July 2023.
In the Cape Cove case, the first hearing before the TMF requested by the Autorité dates back to June 1, 2021, and was announced in its April 22, 2021 weekly bulletin, according to archives reviewed by the Insurance Portal.
