The B.C. Securities Commission has extended its temporary restrictions against a well-known Metro Vancouver financial advisor and his companies. A panel of the commission approved the continuation of orders against Peter Cishecki, Everything Financial Group (EFG) and Everything Financial Consultants Inc. (EFCI) in a ruling Wednesday, one day before the orders were due to expire. The ruling sheds light on the evidence the commission’s executive director has gathered to support his allegation that Cishecki and his two companies committed fraud. The allegations remain unproven, and Everything Financial sent an email to clients after the orders were issued earlier this month saying it is co-operating with the regulator’s investigation. “We will continue to fully co-operate with the BCSC and clear our name and reputation that we have worked over 30 years to achieve,” the email said. CTV News Vancouver’s requests for comment from Cishecki or his companies have not received a response. According to the BCSC ruling, the executive director applied to extend the orders on July 16, the day after they were issued. The orders prohibit trading in the securities issued by EFG and EFCI, and prohibit both companies and Cishecki from engaging in promotional activities. Initially, the BCSC also prohibited a second individual, Shannon Knapp, from promotional activities. The executive director dropped his bid to extend the order against Knapp, and her name appears in the ruling’s list of evidence presented against Cishecki and Everything Financial. According to the document, the executive director submitted a transcript of an interview with Knapp and “sworn evidence from Knapp that there are no underlying investments and that investor deposits are comingled with other funds of EFCI.” The executive director also provided the panel with two whistleblower complaints, one from “an employee of a portfolio manager” and the other from “a former EFCI employee,” as well as agreements between EFG and 32 investors totalling more than $9.6 million. “The agreements all contain the same substantive terms, including assurances that the principal amount is guaranteed at maturity and that there is a minimum guaranteed rate of return, together with the prospect of a higher rate of return based on the performance of the underlying investments,” the ruling reads. EFCI banking records provided to the panel by the executive director “show insufficient assets to repay the investors,” and the executive director also provided “four examples of some investor deposits being used to pay other investors.” “The evidence appears to show, on a prima facie basis, that investors were led to believe that their investments were guaranteed when in fact they were not,” the ruling reads. “Instead, it appears that their funds were comingled with the business accounts of EFCI and EFG, which do not seem to be sufficient to repay the amounts outstanding, and that funds from subsequent investments were being used to pay amounts due under earlier investments.” Having considered the executive director’s evidence, the seriousness of the alleged misconduct and “the risk of significant future harm to investors” from that alleged misconduct, the panel decided extending the temporary orders was “necessary and in the public interest.” The orders will remain in place until a hearing on the allegations is held and a decision is rendered. Cishecki had the opportunity to request a hearing on whether to extend the temporary orders, but his counsel told the BCSC’s hearing office they took “no position with regard to the extension of the temporary orders beyond July 30″ and saw “no need to attend a hearing” on the matter. For many years, Cishecki and other advisors from Everything Financial Group have appeared regularly in paid segments on CTV News Vancouver’s local broadcasts to discuss financial planning strategies. Everything Financial has also been a regular advertiser, running commercials for financial services. In a statement earlier this month, Bell Media Communications said CTV News Vancouver “is no longer associated with Everything Financial Group.”
