He kept advising clients years after his registration lapsed - and it cost him everything.
Ontario's securities regulator has revoked a veteran advisor's registration after finding he kept trading and advising clients while unregistered.
In a decision dated September 22, 2026, Dena Staikos of the Ontario Securities Commission ordered the advisor's registration revoked under section 28 of the Securities Act, following hearings held July 23 and August 5, 2026.
The advisor had spent roughly 35 years in the business. Back in February 2022, he settled with OSC staff over problems at a firm he ran, which lost its license entirely while his own compliance credentials were suspended for four years. He was still allowed to work as an advisor elsewhere, and he did - joining a new portfolio manager - until that job ended abruptly in March 2023, putting his registration on ice again.
That's when things went off track, according to the Commission. While unregistered, he kept giving investment advice to overseas clients whose money sat with a Swiss bank, passing recommendations through a contact there and billing through his old firm. Closer to home, he advised and helped direct trades for former Canadian clients through a contact at a major dealer - all without the license the law requires.
He also had clients sign paperwork claiming that dealer would supervise his advisory work, even though, the Commission found, he knew the firm had never actually agreed to that. Later, when he applied to get registered again through Canada's investment regulator, he told the reviewing officer he'd merely been in talks about a new role and hadn't advised or been paid by old clients in the meantime - claims the Commission found the emails and invoices flatly contradicted.
Staikos also found he sat on records Staff asked for, documents that later turned up anyway through other channels.
Asked during the hearing why he kept emailing advice to former clients, he testified it was "primarily to assist them when they reached out to me," adding that keeping the relationship alive was a secondary reason.
None of it moved the needle in his favour. Staikos noted he'd already been sanctioned once and still hadn't shown he understood how serious this was, and turned down lighter options like added supervision conditions. Revocation, she concluded, was the only response that fit.
The takeaway for the industry: registration gaps aren't just paperwork problems. A lapse between jobs doesn't pause the rules, and advisors - along with any firm that quietly lets a former colleague help old clients - can end up carrying real risk for work done while unlicensed.
