RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Auditors Couple housekeeping items. Iiroc regulates the conduct of investment advisors, not listed companies. Though they are the ONLY regulator I've ever, in 35 years, do anything to protect investors. I'm a fan. Harry in particular actually seems to care. The tsx is a for profit public corporation. It used to be a self regulatory private club with tremendous moral suasion and the ability to publicly embarrass. Now, the exchange is of absolutely no use. If all trading happened on electronic exchanges we'd be no better or worse off, and wouldn't notice the difference. The most frustrating regulators are the provincial securities commissions. They jealously guard their own territory and hide behind "privacy" rules to never provide investors with any information. They are very quick to bully anyone they can that depends on a provincial license or qualification to earn a living. Like a portfolio manager. They are, despite the howls of protest to the contrary, VERY political and they are petrified of the banks who are federally regulated. If after many,many, years of pressure and investigation, the entire process being "private" and not even publicly acknowledged, the penalties are a joke. Every now and then the OSC gets some swagger and tries to do their job but that's always ended by political interference and/or replacing the head of the osc. The bcsc is worse. Much worse. The whole reason the Vancouver stock exchange was commonly referred to as the Wild West exchange, or the Vegas exchange and attracted thousands of small cap crooks and swindlers who made the sweat shops of "wolf of Wall Street" look like chumps, is because the BCSC was completely apathetic and disinterested in anything other than dodging any and all responsibilities. They perfect avoiding any contact with investors, the press, or anyone that contacts them. It goes like this
"Thank you for contacting the British Columbia Securities Commission. Your questions and concerns are important to us. We will get back to you as soon as possible and will respond to your inquiry directly or refer it to the appropriate agency.".
They NEVER get back to you, and will quickly with great delight, flip your message to a different regulator. Their favourite is to say your issue is not subject to the bc securities act. No matter how egregious the behavior, they will do nothing. At most , if you are royally persistent, they will tell you to contact the department responsible for the business corporations act. They will feign surprise you were able to navigate the immense labyrinth of obstacles to find them. And then ignore you and tell you they may or may not investigate but they can't disclose whether there is an investigation now or ever. Nice and neat. That was the plan for the steal the board control fiasco and all the Howe street lawyers know exactly how to run that game. Chances are, if you're apoplectic with your company like FNC, it's a bcsc issuer. There are very few public companies outside osc,amf,BCSC and all those other provinces do absolutely nothing except calculate and collect the annual fees.
so sadly, I see no possible action anymore can take other than an expensive PR campaign and lobbying of senior government $$$$. The only available action to any regulator is to halt the stock. Mehra et al may not even care if it's halted. All those inconvenient annual meetings and questions from piddly retail investors. It's also not going to benefit any minority shareholders to halt trading. Cutting off of the nose to spite the face comes to mind.
so, eventually, you give up and sell. And you continue the lobbying of all regulators whether they like it or not , to get involved. Eventually it may lead to regulatory change that benefits the next attempted theft. It worked with the ridiculous regulation of insider trading reporting. It was administered by the tsx until a few years ago. They, as a reminder, are a for profit corporation so they sold that data to whoever paid the most. We couldn't get timely reliable data until IIROC took control of that process. The logical solution is a national regulator with comparable powers and authority to the SEC. Don't hold your breath.
good luck to all. Pray for luck maybe, because there is no useful oversight function.