By Julius Melnitzer | March 6, 2024
WILL CIRO STEP UP ENFORCING BAN AGAINST TEXT MESSAGING WITH CLIENTS?
Zach Pringle, writing in Babin Bessner Spry LLP’s Financial Services & Securities Blog, notes that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has in the last three years commenced over 35 enforcement actions citing record-keeping violations related to instant messaging between advisors and clients, resulting in more than US$2.5 billion in fines. He explains that text messaging platforms are prohibited because, among other reasons, they are not on the advisor’s system and cannot be monitored, preserved or recorded. Instant messaging also increases security risks and exposure to fraud.
“Canadian regulators aren’t usually too far behind its American counterparts, so it’s anticipated that this infraction will be an area of investigation and enforcement for CIRO in 2024 and 2025,” Pringle writes. He points to the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization’s recent decision in Re Sweeney, which imposed a fine of $50,000, costs of $15,000 and a one-month registration suspension for misconduct that included the use of unauthorized third party platforms, which served to increase the sanction.
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Federal Court awards damages and costs AFTER GTAA PUTS LANGUAGE RIGHTS ON “BACK BURNER”
In a scathing judgment, Justice Peter Pamel of the Federal Court has ruled that the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which operates Pearson International Airport, failed to meet its language duties under the Official Languages Act and therefore violated the language rights of Michel Thibodeau, a crusader for those rights. Thibodeau complained that the GTAA’s website failed to simultaneously post a press release in French after posting it on its website in English, failed to ensure that the signage at CIBC travel insurance and currency exchange branches at the airport were in both official languages, and failed to ensure that a Booster Juice Restaurant sign advertising its childrens’ play area was in French as well as English.
In awarding combined damages and costs to Thibodeau of $6,500 (Thibodeau had requested $9500), Pamel noted that GTAA simply “allowed the violations to continue”, that they were only corrected because Thibodeau complained, and that GTAA’s policies failed “to include the simple measure of having an employee with a notepad tour the terminal from time to time”. Pamel was “astounded at the suggestion that upholding constiutionally guaranteed language rights could be put on the back burner until a more convenient time”.
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EVEN WOMEN WORKING IN PRIVATE SECTOR CAN’T LEVERAGE NFP BOARD EXPERIENCE TO PAID BOARDS.
Here are the highlights of the newest edition of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP’s Blakes Board Report:
- 79% of women on boards were on non-profit boards; although 86% were employed in the private sector, leveraging their NFP experience to a paid board was “not a given”;
- 88% of women who were not on boards aspired to one;
- 88% of respondents said networking was the key to finding board opportunities; and
- 56% of respondents’ companies had policies about external board service.
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GLOBAL M&A LOWEST IN DECADE
LSEG Data & Analytics’ Global Mergers and Acquisitions Review reports that M&A deals in 2023 fell by 17% to US$2.9 trillion, making it the slowest year since 2013. Deal volume decreased 6% over 2022 and represented a three-year low. According to The Law Society Gazette, LSEG did see signs of a revival in the fourth quarter.
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DATA BREACH LEGAL ADVISORS HUNG ON OWN PETARD
Practice Source reports that San Francisco-based Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, which advises companies on regulatory requirements governing data breaches and other security incidents, was itself the subject of a cyberattack in March 2023 that exposed clients’ sensitive health data and other personal information of more than 637,000 data breach victims.
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