OSC v. Ayaz Dhanani (Also known as Azim Virani, Michael Lee, Alex Nebris, Paul Dhanani, Samuel Ramos, and Rahim Jiwa) (2017)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In 2017 the Ontario Securities Commission reciprocated British Columbia sanctions against Ayaz Dhanani, found by the BCSC to have defrauded three investors of C$188,000. The Ontario order permanently bars him from the Ontario market. The conduct is investment fraud, not insider trading.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	OSC
Date filed	2017-03-01
Date resolved	2017-05-12
Court	Capital Markets Tribunal (Ontario)
Status	judgment
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Ayaz Dhanani (Also known as Azim Virani, Michael Lee, Alex Nebris, Paul Dhanani, Samuel Ramos, (individual) ; Rahim Jiwa) (individual)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Ontario Securities Commission issued an inter-jurisdictional notice of hearing on March 1, 2017 and decided the matter on May 12, 2017.

The BCSC found on May 30, 2016 that Dhanani, who used several aliases, had told investors he had special access to the shares of a mining company about to list and took their money; its December 2016 order imposed market bans, disgorgement of C$188,800 and a C$225,000 administrative penalty.

Ontario's order imposes permanent trading, acquisition, exemption and director, officer and registrant bans but no money. The C$225,000 previously shown on this page is the British Columbia penalty, and the insider-trading tag was applied in error.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Timeline

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.