News Release

Released: 05/18/01 Contact: Andrew Poon
NR 01-17 (604) 899-6880 or
(BC only) 1-800-373-6393
Vancouver -- The BC Securities Commission has banned Nirbhia Singh Gill of Surrey from trading in securities for eight years and ordered him to pay a $10,000 penalty for committing fraud in connection with an unregistered distribution of securities.

In March, the Commission found that Gill had breached the Securities Act by perpetrating a fraud on an individual and making misrepresentations to him relating to a distribution.

Gill was a salesperson with Investors Group Financial Services from 1990 until he left in early 1996. Gill re-established contact with two of his former clients later that same year. During the next two years, those two men gave Gill a total of $118,000. Gill deposited the money into accounts at Canaccord Capital and a personal account at a credit union. He used the money to pay debts and his personal expenses. Only $34,000 of that money has been paid back.

Gill said both men gave him the money as personal loans, an argument the Commission panel accepted with respect to one of the men. However, the Commission panel found that the other man had given money to Gill as an investment, not as a personal loan. The Commission panel also found that Gill made misrepresentations to this man about Gill’s financial situation and what Gill intended to do with the money and that Gill had perpetrated a fraud on him.

“Gill took advantage of his prior registrant-client relationship with [Peter] Brown, and Brown’s lack of investment knowledge, to perpetrate a fraud on Brown. In so doing he also breached other sections of the Act. We believe that Gill’s continued participation in the capital markets would pose a significant threat to investors,” the panel said in rendering its decision.

The B.C. Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts within the province. Copies of the decision can be viewed in the documents database of the commission’s website www.bcsc.bc.ca or by contacting Media Relations Officer Andrew Poon at 899-6880.


Backgrounder

Here is a list of the findings of the Commission panel. Text of the findings (March 20, 2001) and the decision (May 17, 2001) can be found in the BCSC documents database at www.bcsc.bc.ca.

1. Gill and Gill Financial distributed securities to two men without registration and without obtaining a receipt for a prospectus, contrary to sections 34(1) and 61(1) of the Act.

2. Gill perpetrated a fraud on one of these men, contrary to section 57 of the Act.

3. Gill made misrepresentations to one of these men with the intention of effecting a trade in a security, contrary to section 50(1)(d) of the Act.