Siu Mui “Debbie” Wong and Siu Kon “Bonnie” Soo, sisters and residents of British Columbia, have been permanently banned from trading or purchasing securities in the province and have been ordered to repay almost $10 million in funds they misappropriated from investors in two separate projects.
The sisters and Wheatland Industrial Park, a joint venture Wong and Soo created to buy and develop land in Wheatland, Alberta, were found in June 2016 to have illegally distributed securities in the project. The sisters committed fraud when they transferred several units of the JV to their adult children and husbands without obtaining investor approval.
The sisters, along with 1300302 Alberta Inc. and D&E Arctic—two companies they set up relating to the Wheatland project—have been ordered to repay $3,890,000, jointly and severally. Wong and Soo alone have been ordered to repay an additional $5,967,850, for a total amount of $9,857,850.
“Investors testified as to their mental anguish and increased financial burdens,” the BCSC panel wrote in its decision.
“They have suffered those harms even if they later recoup their investments, for which there is no evidence to suggest that it is a possibility.”
The pair was also found guilty of committing multiple acts of fraud in a separate project, located in Rocky View, Alberta. They inflated the purchase price and lied to investors about this, and then they withheld pertinent information about the completion date of the project.
The panel did not ban Wheatland from trading in securities, as it is no longer controlled by either Wong or Soo.
@EmmaHampelBIV
