OSC's top enforcement official to leave at end of February
The Ontario Securities Commission‘s director of enforcement will be leaving the capital markets watchdog at the end of February after seven years in the job, according to sources who were briefed on his departure.
Jeff Kehoe, 60, helmed a number of major cases at Canada’s largest securities regulator, including securing findings of fraud against the two senior executives of real estate firm First Leaside Group of Companies. He also oversaw cases against executives of defunct timber company Sino-Forest Corp., mortgage company Home Capital Group Inc. and cannabis company CannTrust Holdings Inc., and was in the process of overseeing the ongoing case against executives of lender Bridging Finance Inc., which was put into receivership.
The CannTrust case ended abruptly with acquittals in December 2022 when cross-examination of a key OSC witness exposed a flaw in the regulator’s case, a rare quasi-criminal prosecution that played out in the Ontario Court of Justice.
During his time at the OSC, Kehoe also oversaw no-contest settlements with some of the country’s biggest banks, which saw millions of dollars paid to clients who had been changed “excess” investment fees on funds as a result of insufficient controls or supervision.
In addition to cases pursued through the courts and the regulator’s own tribunal, Kehoe’s enforcement team produced an in-depth report in 2020 on the collapse of crypto trading platform QuadrigaCx, which it dubbed “an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology.”
The report was instrumental in the OSC’s hardline stance on crypto, which included taking a leading role in tracking and regulating the sector, including crypto exchanges.
The OSC cracked down on non-compliant crypto platforms in 2022 with
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