Politically connected businessman Paul Oei must pay huge financial penalty to B.C. Securities Commission

by Charlie Smith on August 8th, 2018 at 10:44 AM

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A Vancouver-area businessman and three of his companies will have to turn over $8.6 million to the provincial securities regulator.

Paul Se Hui Oei, two B.C.-based numbered companies, and Canadian Manu were not registered under the Securities Act when they started raising money to supposedly fund an Abbotsford fertilizer company and a compost-waste company in Port Coquitlam.

In December, the B.C. Securities Commission found them all guilty of fraud in connection with 63 investments worth slightly more than $5 million.

Oei used some of the money from immigrant investors for donations to political parties, advertising, and to fund beauty pageants.

“The respondents misappropriated these funds and used them for their own purposes and not as the investors were told they would be used,” a BCSC panel stated last year.

This photo of Paul Oei alongside then premier Christy Clark appeared on B.C. Liberal MLA John Yap's Twitter feed.

Today, the panel ordered Oei and Canadian Manu to pay administrative penalties of $4.5 million and $1 million respectively.

In addition, they must disgorge another $3.1 million.

Oei faces a lifetime trading ban on buying any securities or exchange contracts or serving as a director or issuer of any registrant under the Securities Act.