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A Focused Approach to Enforcement
Our
Enforcement Branch aims to focus on activities that involve substantial
violations of Ontario securities law. We use a filtering approach to ensure
that the most serious cases are prosecuted. Staff applies a standard set
of risk-based criteria to each case to determine which ones may pose the
greatest threat to the integrity of Ontario’s capital markets. Last
year we published those criteria for the first time. By making our investigative
process more transparent, we hope to strengthen the perception of the
fairness of our methods, and to illustrate the way we prioritize the files
we take on.
Our Case Assessment team conducts the initial review of the leads we obtain from such sources as public complaints, media reports, and other agencies. Our Surveillance team also generates leads through its monitoring of potential trading abuses. Cases that appear to meet our risk-based criteria are typically passed along to the Investigations team for a more thorough review. Finally, our investigators refer the most compelling files to the Litigation team, which determines whether there is a sufficient basis to initiate formal proceedings.
One of our aims is to settle matters without incurring the expense of a full hearing. Last year, the commission approved 36 settlement agreements.
The following table shows the number of files handled last year by each team in the Enforcement branch.
