A Vancouver lawyer, Samuel T.G. Cole, has been handed a six-month suspension following a legal tribunal’s decision to address professional misconduct. The Law Society’s review board increased Cole’s suspension from the initial four months imposed by an earlier panel. However, the board overturned a $20,000 fine previously ordered, stating that combining a suspension and a fine was not an appropriate sanction.
The case traces back to a 2021 ruling by a hearing panel, which found Cole guilty of intentionally bypassing a securities regulator’s directive to benefit his client. According to the panel, Cole enabled a company’s reverse takeover, helping his client to sidestep regulatory restrictions.
The misconduct involved advising his client, a board member and insider ineligible to participate in a private placement, to use a nominee to evade the regulator’s directive. Cole instructed his client to list the client’s then-girlfriend as the nominee and personally handled the necessary filings, which included submitting false information to the securities regulator.
The review board underscored the seriousness of Cole’s actions, emphasizing that a longer suspension was necessary to reflect the breach of professional ethics. It also noted that imposing a fine in addition to the suspension was an error in the original panel’s ruling.
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