At a settlement hearing August 18, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) fined Calgary, Alberta-based chief compliance officer, Kenneth Parker, $20,000 plus costs totaling $5,000, after Parker admitted that he failed to carry out his responsibilities, hindering his firm’s ability to assess its compliance with MFDA by-laws, rules, policies and applicable securities legislation.
In its settlement agreement with Parker, the MFDA says between April 2014 and February 2016 he submitted annual reports to his firm’s board of directors, which failed to accurately report on the status of branch and sub-branch reviews. Parker and the firm, Portfolio Strategies Corporation, are currently engaged in on-going litigation.
According to the settlement agreement, MFDA staff, in 2012, 2014 and 2016 compliance examination reports identified branches and sub-branches that had never been subject to a branch review. Following each, in his report to Portfolio Strategies’ board of directors, Parker said that review schedules provided to the MFDA were being met when they were not.
“At the time when the respondent submitted the 2013, 2014 and 2015 chief compliance officer reports to the board, he knew or ought to have known that the number of branch and sub-branch reviews performed during the relevant periods did not meet the requirement of the branch review schedule,” the MFDA writes.
