The Enforcement Report: A Year in Review

CIRO’s annual Enforcement Report offers an insightful look into the department's efforts to protect investors from unfair, improper, or fraudulent practices. This year’s report features case highlights, key statistics, and a view onto key regulatory evolutions that will improve the industry for all Canadians.

What’s the role of CIRO’s enforcement team?

Enforcement investigates potential misconduct and potential breaches of the CIRO rules by our investment dealers and mutual fund dealers and their employees.

Enforcement proceedings aim to send the message that Canada’s regulators are not only monitoring for misconduct but that we act in the interests of the public to protect Canadians. Enforcement’s guiding principles are to be fair, effective and timely—pursuing those cases that will have the greatest deterrent impact on other potential wrongdoers.

Protecting Investors

CIRO’s mission is promote healthy capital markets by regulating fairly and effectively so that investors feel protected and confident investing for their futures. Each year, we receive many complaints and inquiries about potential wrongdoers active in the investment industry.

“We strive to protect investors from unfair and fraudulent practices, improve industry standards and strengthen the integrity of the market,” said Charles Toth, Vice-President of Complaint Intake and Operations.

Sources and tips often come from the public, from CIRO’s whistleblower service, from partners at the Canadian Securities Administrators and from our own internal departments such as compliance and market regulation.

This year, our Complaints and Inquiries team implemented a centralized intake process for all public complaints and inquiries that makes it simple and accessible for all investors. Working with the Office of the Investor, they published the How to Make a Complaint brochure—consolidating materials and information from its two predecessor organizations (IIROC & MFDA) and bringing clarity and ease to the process.

Harmonizing our Regulatory Approach

In the past fiscal year, Enforcement took several steps to harmonize CIRO’s approach to regulation and create much sought-after efficiencies for dealers and industry participants—reducing discrepancies and burden while increasing clarity for all.

“We don’t measure the success of enforcement in any given year simply by the qualitative numbers,” said Charles Corlett, Vice-President of Enforcement. “The best measure of success is the nature and quality of the cases that are brought before a tribunal and the impact of those cases on the individuals and firms that we regulate.”

Enforcement unified its decision-making process across investment dealer and mutual fund rule cases, to promote a consistent framework for taking cases forward from investigation to formal hearing proceedings. The department also adopted and harmonized Sanction Guidelines and Enforcement Staff Policy Statements. These provide greater clarity to dealers and advisors while replacing all previous versions for Investment Dealers and Mutual Fund Dealers. The Sanction guidelines set out the general principles and key factors for determining an appropriate sanction and apply to all CIRO enforcement matters.

CIRO’s vision is to be an agile and trusted regulator who helps the investment industry deliver the right financial outcomes for investors.

To learn more, read the news release.