British Columbia Securities Commission settles misrepresentation case with Varandeep Singh Grewal for CAD 500,000 and 10-year market prohibitions

The British Columbia Securities Commission announced a settlement with B.C. resident Varandeep Singh Grewal requiring a CAD 500,000 payment and 10-year prohibitions from specified investment market activities for breaching the Securities Act prohibition on misrepresentations. The case concerns misleading investor relations materials disseminated in connection with a company that presented itself as a mineral exploration start-up. Over two months in 2018, Grewal, a shareholder of the company, helped arrange investor relations activities through a third-party provider that published advertorials on websites and via email distributions. Those materials claimed the company was rapidly assembling operations, mining and producing a mineral, and had state-of-the-art environmentally friendly mining technology, when it was still in the exploration phase, was not producing the mineral, lacked the claimed operations and technology, and did not own pre-existing infrastructure on the property. The 10-year prohibitions include bans on acting as a registrant or promoter, or serving in a management or consultative capacity connected to securities or derivatives market activities, with the release noting Grewal had no prior B.C. securities regulatory misconduct and the conduct involved a narrow period and a single issuer.