A Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) hearing panel has accepted a settlement agreement between MFDA staff and FundEX Investments Inc. advisor, James Edgar Mitchell Wilson. In the agreement, the Winnipeg-based dealing representative admits that he obtained, possessed and in some instances used to process transactions, 80 per-signed account forms for 51 different clients between September 2009 and November 2018.
Between January 2013 and April 2018 Wilson also altered and used 15 account forms to process transactions for 14 clients, without having clients initial the alterations. In June 2015 he also photocopied the signature page from an account form that had previously been signed by a client, and reused the signature page to complete an additional form for the client.
All of the altered forms were discovered by FundEX in February 2019 during an onsite branch review. The firm placed Wilson under strict supervision for three months and sent audit letters to affected clients, along with copies of their transaction histories for three years, and asked clients to review and verify the accuracy of trading activity in their accounts. It also checked to see if clients’ financial circumstances were still inline with stated investment objectives and risk tolerance. No clients reported any concerns to the company.
In September 2019, FundEX issued a warning letter to Wilson, and required him to pay $3,436 for costs associated with the audit letters and his period of strict supervision. The MFDA, meanwhile, fined Wilson $30,000, assessed costs of $2,500 and ordered Wilson to write or rewrite and pass the Ethics and Professional Conduct Course offered by the IFSE Institute within three months.