Fair dealing designer leaves OSC

(December 20, 2004) Julia Dublin, the architect of the Ontario Securities Commission’s controversial fair dealing model, has left her position as the regulator’s senior legal counsel.

Dublin hasn’t worked at the commission since the end of November, but her departure became widely known last week when the OSC hosted a going-away party for her. Rumours of Dublin’s future have been swirling since the commission’s annual conference in early November, when she was absent from a panel discussion updating the status of the fair dealing project.

During that panel discussion, OSC executive director Charlie Macfarlane announced that fair dealing would become part of a larger initiative, aimed at harmonizing the various securities regulation requirements across the country.

The Canadian Securities Administrators set up a joint steering committee, dubbed “Project Charlie,” earlier this year. It includes representatives from regulators in Alberta, B.C., Quebec and Ontario, as well as senior members of the IDA, the MFDA and two industry participants.

Dublin was supposed to be working on the second phase of the fair dealing model. Some insiders say she was effectively pushed out of the picture when Macfarlane took over the project.

“She does all the work and takes the heat,” one source close to the fair dealing project complained. “Macfarlane gets all the provinces to sign on and once this becomes law, he will take the credit.”

There’s no word on where Dublin is heading, though she will likely attract interest from some major law firms, considering her legal and regulatory experience. When Rebecca Cowdery, who led a couple of major mutual fund reform projects at the OSC, left the commission last year, she ended up at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

Dublin is not the only recent high-profile departure from the OSC. Senior enforcement litigator Jay Naster — who was actively involved in negotiations between the commission and the mutual fund industry over market timing — abruptly left in mid-October amid reports his refusal to back down on certain issues was bogging down the talks and that the OSC wanted the settlements wrapped up before the end of the year.

There’s speculation that the OSC is engaging in a housecleaning of sorts, as it prepares for the departure of chair David Brown, who announced in November that he will be stepping down in June, 2005. Brown has been in charge at the OSC since 1998.

Filed by Doug Watt, Advisor.ca, doug.watt@advisor.rogers.com