Investors recover pennies on the dollar

Investors who suffered hefty losses to a fraud will get a fraction of their money back from the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC).

Back in 2018, the BCSC ordered $8.6 million in sanctions — including $3.1 million in disgorgement — against Paul Se Hui Oei and Canadian Manu Immigration & Financial Services Inc. after finding they defrauded investors by misappropriating a portion of the $13.3 million they raised to finance start-up companies.

Those sanctions have not been paid, according to the regulator’s sanctions payments list. However, the BCSC recovered just under $70,000 from an unnamed third party, which a regulatory hearing panel has now ordered to be returned to investors.

“The funds will be divided up among nine investors who lost money as a direct result of Oei’s misconduct and who submitted a claim after the BCSC had published a notice about the availability of funds,” the regulator said.

“Since the funds recovered by the BCSC are insufficient to pay the investors’ claims in full, the panel ordered that the funds — together with accrued interest — be divided on a prorated basis,” the regulator said.

In the enforcement case against Oei and Canadian Manu, the hearing panel was unable to assess the precise amount of investor losses. It found approximately $5 million was misappropriated from investors, but that some investors received money back, some companies involved went bankrupt, and investors’ losses weren’t all due to fraudulent conduct.

The $3.1 million in disgorgement that was ordered in the case represented the panel’s finding as to the balance of the amount of the fraud minus the amount of money returned to investors.

In addition to the financial sanctions, Oei and the company were also permanently banned from the market.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.