Alberta man used business investors' money to buy himself home in Vernon

Photo: Jon Manchester

Alberta Securities Commission website.

An Alberta man faces discipline from the Alberta Securities Commission after he used investor's money to buy himself a home in Vernon.

In a decision issued Nov. 7, the commission says Logan Keith Shaw used more than $800,000 from the sale of shares in his numbered company to buy the property in 2012.

The remainder of $940,000 from six investors was spent on credit card bills and other purchases.

The commission says Shaw contravened the Alberta Securities Act by "engaging or participating in an act, practice, or course of conduct relating to securities that they knew or ought to have known perpetrated a fraud on investors."

The money was to have been used as capital for a would-be business that was to install point-of-sale devices in taxi cabs in Mexico.

Shaw, a former resident of Grande Prairie, Alta., moved to Vernon in the fall of 2012.

He held approximately 45% of the numbered company's voting shares and, through Loshaw Enterprises Inc., of which he was the sole director and shareholder. He had sole signing authority for its bank accounts.

Hearings on the accusations were delayed numerous times over the last decade due to Shaw's health issues.

But, once they did get going, Shaw did not deny of the allegations, did not have legal counsel, and elected not to file any evidence on his own behalf.

The same day share subscription proceeds were deposited, $810,866 was transferred to the trust account of a Vancouver law firm for the purchase of the Vernon property, "representing almost all of the $815,000 purchase price," the commission's decision paper states.

After a series of transactions, the business account was left with just $7,484.

The commission found "the evidence was clear" against Shaw.

Shaw's answers "were generally evasive, non-responsive, and obtuse," the commission found.

"The only possible position we could discern was that Shaw perhaps believed that he could treat (the) money ... as his own" and that he "perhaps intended to pay investors their principal and some interest" if the business succeeded.

A future hearing will determine what "sanctions or cost-recovery" may follow the decision.