B.C. high court allows collection of Vancouver fraudster’s retirement income after dismissing appeal
B.C.’s high court upheld a lower court ruing that allowed the collection of retirement income from Vancouver fraudster Earle Douglas Pasquill.
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A B.C. man who was involved in defrauding more than 700 investors of more than $31 million nearly two decades ago has lost an appeal of a judgment ordering the surrender of retirement income to the B.C. Securities Commission.
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In a ruling released this week, B.C.’s high court upheld a lower court ruing that allowed the collection of retirement income from Vancouver fraudster Earle Douglas Pasquill.
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A B.C. Court of Appeal three-judge panel disagreed with arguments from Pasquill that money in a life income fund was exempt from new provincial regulations that allow the securities commission to go after retirement savings to collect penalties.
Pasquill owes $36.7 million in penalties issued by a securities commission tribunal in 2015, but hasn’t paid a cent.
“This decision … provides clarity that these (retirement) payments are forfeit to the commission,” said Douglas Muir, director of enforcement for the securities commission. “This is an example of the lengths we go to try to get these debts back and how difficult and challenging and time-consuming it can be.”
According to the B.C. Court of Appeal decision, Pasquill held $551,349.63 in his life income accounts.
Money collected will be returned to investors, said Muir.
Pasquill’s lawyers didn’t respond immediately to a question by email on whether there would be an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In another related matter, Pasquill’s spouse, Vicki Irene Pasquill, has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
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The securities commission had filed a cross-appeal alleging that the lower court judge erred in declining to appoint a receiver for Pasquill’s life income fund. The Appeal Court, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Peter Edelmann, dismissed that challenge as well.
The securities commission is the province’s financial markets regulator and its tribunal is a quasi-judicial body that holds hearings and makes rulings on violations of the Securities Act and its regulations.
The tribunal issued joint penalties to Pasquill and Michael Patrick Lathigee after it found they raised tens of millions of dollars in 2008 from nearly 700 investors without telling them the real estate development projects pitched were in serious financial difficulty. The panel also found millions raised to invest in U.S. foreclosures had been redirected to prop up the real estate developments with unsecured loans that went bust.
Pasquill and Lathigee were each issued a $15 million fine and ordered to pay back the $21.7 million lost by investors.
So far, all that has been collected has been $429,000 from Lathigee, who now lives in the U.S., and $242,000 from bankruptcy proceedings involving one of the investment companies.
Changes the province made in March 2020 to the Securities Act and the Court Order Enforcement Act were meant to allow the securities commission to seize registered retirement plans from fraudsters who haven’t paid their penalties.
But an earlier Appeal Court ruling found the changes hadn’t gone far enough because a specific exemption was needed in the province’s Pension Act for securities penalties.
The B.C. government made those changes in 2023 to “expressly permit” the payment, return or withdrawal of a pension benefit by a forfeiture order under the Securities Act.
The B.C. government has been introducing changes to improve the securities commission’s penalty collection abilities and strengthen market regulations following a 2017 Postmedia News investigation that found more than half-a-billion dollars in penalties had gone uncollected by the securities commission in the previous decade, and that criminal prosecutions by police were rare.
