TORONTO – A man at the centre of a major decades old brokerage scandal is facing new allegations of breaching the Ontario Securities Act.
The Ontario Securities Commission says Venard (Lenny) Gaudet, chief financial officer of Osler Inc. when the Toronto brokeage collapsed back in the 1980s, is accused of unregistered trading and distributing securities without having filed a prospectus.
Regulators, following an investigation by the OSC’s Joint Serious Offence Team, have accused Gaudet of having sold common shares of a company called Intrinsic Minerals Ltd. to four Ontario investors in July 2012.
Gaudet was previously sanctioned by the OSC in 1991 for his leading role in a $12-million fraud at Osler, with the regulator permanently revoking his registration and banning him from relying on trading exemptions.
At the time, the commission wrote that Gaudet’s conduct was so reprehensible that he “should never again be allowed to participate in the capital markets of this province.”
His first court appearance on the allegations involving Intrinsic Minerals, which have not been proven, is scheduled for Dec. 12.
The JSOT was established an enforcement partnership between the OSC, the RCMP Financial Crime program and the Ontario Provincial Police Anti-Rackets Branch.
