Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 13 The SEC alleges Briner then set up shell companies with pup- pet officers in place. The SEC January 2015 release said it stifled a microcap scheme in 2014 when "it suspended the registration statements of 20 purported mining companies being used for sham offerings of stock to investors." The SEC enforcement division further alleges none of the companies had any intention of pursuing mining, and mineral claims purportedly owned by each company were never actually transferred to them. The registration statements falsely claimed that each company was capitalized by the CEO's $30,000 purchase of issuer stock when in fact it was Briner who was funding the companies. The SEC did not respond by press time to Canadian Lawyer's requests for information whether it was settling with Briner on the current allegations. In an earlier statement, Andrew M. Calamari, director of the SEC's New York Regional Office, said: "Briner allegedly orchestrated a massive scheme to create pub- lic shell companies through false registration statements. Our action in this case proactively prevented Briner and his cohorts from carrying out the fraud to an extent that directly harmed investors." In October 2013, Briner lost his law firm when the Law Society of B.C. went to court to take over his practice: He did not oppose the application and agreed to co-operate with the LSBC's inves- tigation. He also agreed to resign from practising as a lawyer at that time. "The law society was appointed custodian over his law practice in October 2013, and continues to deal with client matters in that custodian role," said LSBC communications officer David Jordan. Although Briner was not a practising member, the LSBC had a disciplinary hearing against him in late 2014. Its March 2015 find- ings indicated Briner committed professional misconduct in three instances. He was found to have misappropriated trust funds of $50,439.44; failed to co-operate with the LSBC into the investiga- tion of the funds; and breached trust accounting rules. Briner's problem don't stop there. The U.S. Commodities Future Trading Commission in April 2015 filed civil enforcement action in Chicago's federal court against him and MetroWest and Tech Power, Inc. a Nevada corporation, and its owner Matthew J. Marcus, of California, for alleged wrongdoing in 2014. "The CFTC complaint charges the four defendants with engaging in fictitious single stock futures transactions on OneChicago LLC and trading non-competitively," said the CFTC release issued in April. The CFTC complaint alleges that over seven consecutive trad- ing days from Jan. 28, 2014 to Feb. 5, 2014, the defendants engaged in 624 round-turn trades involving 1,248 perfectly matched pre- arranged, non-competitive transactions in single stock futures contracts listed on OneChicago. By structuring the transactions in this way, the defendants allegedly were able to ensure MetroWest would trade with Tech Power and Tech Power would always profit from the transactions. The CFTC claims the defendants conducted a "money pass" between the two accounts and moved at least $390,000 from MetroWest to Tech Power. At that time in April 2015, Judge Milton Shadur, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a restraining order on behalf of the CFTC freezing certain assets and prohibiting the defendants from destroying documents. In B.C., it is questionable who would have such documents or if any consequences will occur to Briner. Crown prosecutor McKin- ley said the February charges do not include the CFTC charges. LSBC's Jordan said: "Generally when we take custodianship of a practice we are aware of all its accounts. We contact the banks and freeze the accounts. We were not aware of this account and trades were made without our knowledge. In annual trust reports lawyers are required to provide a list of all trust accounts. Briner never listed this account, and in the accounting materials we received pursuant to our custodianship there was nothing to show us this account existed. We became aware of the U.S. Commod- ity Futures Trading Commission investigation when someone contacted the law society with regard to that investigation. We did some further investigation and found out the account existed." The CFTC also provided no insight. CFTC spokesman Dennis Holden would not comment on where the money went or wheth- er there was any kind of settlement in process. "When a settle- ment is reached, we issue a press release." Holden was unaware the LSBC had taken over MetroWest's matters and the press release issued in 2015 makes no mention of the LSBC control- ling Briner's law practice since 2013. — JEAN SORENSEN jean_sorensen@telus.net \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP HeneinHutchison-1_CL_Mar_15.indd 1 2015-02-09 9:50 AM

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