Financial industry

Jonathan Stempel – February 16, 2012

It wasn't Sherry Hunt's original intent to go public on the shoddy quality control at a mortgage unit at Citigroup Inc, her employer since 2004. But by March 2011, as it became apparent to her that the problems were getting worse and not being addressed, the Missouri quality assurance manager decided enough was enough.

"I set up an appointment with human resources and ethics and told them everything," Hunt recalled in a telephone interview. "They did some cursory investigation. The sad part is, they never ever told me, 'Sherry, you were right,' or 'Sherry, you're looking at this wrong.' There were no assurances."

Barry Critchley – February 16, 2012

Five and a half years on, a group of plaintiffs can do a little celebrating given that a class action lawsuit they brought against various entities of the Bank of Montreal has just been certified.

The next stage is for the bank to file a statement of defence (assuming it doesn’t appeal) in the matter that was started in August 2006 by James MacDonald, a former investment advisor at BMO Nesbitt Burns and which focuses on registered accounts held at the bank, the conversion of foreign currency in those accounts and the fees charged.

Lorrie Goldstein – February 11, 2012

Why would we adopt the same lax regulatory regime for dealing with corporate fraudsters in Canada that allowed Wall Street to escape responsibility for the global economic crash it helped cause in 2008?

Bizarrely, the Ontario Securities Commission, Canada’s securities regulator by default since we don’t even have a national one, is urging the adoption of so-called “no contest” settlements here for major financial fraudsters.

Vanessa Lu – February 8, 2012

The Ontario Securities Commission has accused prominent Canadian mining executive Ian Telfer of helping a friend disguise ownership of securities and circumvent email records.

Telfer, chairman of Vancouver-based Goldcorp, was named in a 27-page statement of allegations by the OSC in a probe into an illegal tipping and trading scheme involving his friend of two decades, Eda Marie Agueci.