The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) recently released details of its settlement agreement with Craig Bishop, an employee of Scotia Capital Inc., who was fined $15,000 for insider trading.
The decision says that between March 2018 and April 2021, Bishop received material information about an unnamed company (the company is not named in the ruling) from its chief executive officer (CEO), whom he knew personally.
Bishop claims the CEO emailed him insider information a dozen times, even after being asked to cease and desist following the first four emails.
Despite asking the CEO to stop sharing insider information, Bishop shared the knowledge with clients on two occasions, the CIRO decision says, each time before the company made the information public via a press release.
Since the company in question issued press releases before the next opening of the relevant markets, Bishop and his clients could not act on the information and did not benefit from it. However, investment dealer rules prevented Bishop from acting on the information in any way.
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Bishop, the CIRO ruling says, “failed in his duty to take appropriate measures to protect the financial markets.”
After finding out about the indiscretion, Scotia Capital also fined Bishop $50,000 as an internal reprimand, closely supervised him for a year, and required him to write the Conduct and Practices Handbook Course examination again.
Subsequently, CIRO also sanctioned Bishop and ordered him to pay $5,000 in costs.
