Trading during 15-year ban brings permanent market exclusion and $100,000 penalty

Ron Carter Hew was permanently barred from Ontario’s capital markets and ordered to pay a $100,000 administrative penalty after the Capital Markets Tribunal found he made hundreds of securities trades while an earlier trading ban remained in force.

In Ontario Securities Commission v Hew, 2026 ONCMT 5, adjudicator M. Cecilia Williams imposed the sanctions on January 23, 2026. The order also required Hew to pay $38,282.87 in investigation and hearing costs. Unlike the earlier ban, the new trading prohibition contains no exception for retirement savings accounts.

An exception he did not follow

The decision recounts a 2005 settlement in which Hew admitted trading in other people’s accounts without being registered. The resulting order barred securities trading for 15 years but allowed him to trade in registered retirement savings plans in which he had the sole beneficial interest. That ban expired in July 2020.

The later proceeding concerned trading in his own non-RRSP accounts, including a margin account and a tax-free savings account. Records examined by the commission covered September 2017 through the last days of the ban. The instruments included shares, exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded notes and options. A TFSA did not fall within the order’s RRSP exception.

Hew’s trading produced a net loss of US$20,118 after commissions during the period examined. The commission therefore did not seek disgorgement. The administrative penalty addressed the breach of the order, rather than requiring him to surrender trading profits.

Hew did not participate or file materials. Williams found that he had been properly notified and served and had chosen not to participate, allowing the combined written merits and sanctions hearing to proceed. His absence did not prevent the tribunal from examining the limits of the commission’s allegations.

Older trades remained part of a continuing course of conduct

Some of the conduct alleged by the commission occurred more than six years before it started the enforcement proceeding in September 2025. The tribunal applied the statutory limitation period by considering the last event in a continuing course of conduct, rather than treating each older trade in isolation. It found a pattern of prohibited trading that continued into July 2020 and demonstrated continuity of purpose, so the proceeding was not time-barred.

Williams nevertheless declined to accept the commission’s argument that merely opening the accounts should count as an act in furtherance of a trade in this case. The commission had supplied no authority for that conclusion, and Hew had made no potentially opposing submissions. She excluded the opening of the earlier margin account from her limitation-period analysis.

A second margin account also presented a fairness problem: it was not identified in the enforcement application, and there was no evidence of trading in it. Williams refused to include it in the analysis. Those limits did not undermine the proven breaches through actual trading in the other two accounts.

Permanent restrictions, but a smaller costs award

Williams treated compliance with tribunal orders as essential to investor protection and confidence in the markets. Hew had agreed to the earlier ban and could have traded within its RRSP exception. His intentional breach convinced her that stronger sanctions were needed to deter him and others, and that no further trading exception was appropriate.

The final order permanently prohibits trading in securities or derivatives, acquiring securities, and acting as a registrant or promoter. It also removes the benefit of securities-law exemptions, requires Hew to resign any director or officer positions with issuers or registrants, and permanently bars him from those roles. The decision did not depend on a finding that he had abused a director or officer position; Williams considered his disregard of the earlier order sufficient to justify those restrictions.

The tribunal accepted the requested $100,000 administrative penalty but reduced the commission’s $44,584.98 costs request. Williams observed that the matter was simple, uncontested and dealt with through a combined written hearing. She also rejected the suggestion that the amount sought was significantly below the costs incurred, calculating the difference at only about one per cent.

Williams awarded $36,916.14 plus $1,366.73 in disbursements, for the $38,282.87 total in the order. These were regulatory sanctions and costs; the decision did not establish that Hew had paid them.

Sources: Reasons and decision; January 23, 2026 order.