Market Manipulation. Search

OSC v. Nova Tech Ltd. and Cynthia Petion (2023)

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.

Report an error in this record (osc-nova-tech-ltd-2023) by email

In 2023 Ontario Securities Commission staff alleged that Nova Tech Ltd and its chief executive Cynthia Petion sold units of a "PAMM" trading product to Ontario investors through an online multi-level marketing campaign without registration or a prospectus, and kept selling after a cease trade order. The tribunal's December 2024 order imposed permanent bans, a $2.5 million penalty and $31,000 of disgorgement.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency OSC
Release number 2023-20
Date filed 2023-08-25
Date resolved 2024-12-03
Court Capital Markets Tribunal (Ontario)
Status judgment
Asset class crypto, fx
Criminal parallel No
Bars imposed trading ban
Defendants Nova Tech Ltd. (entity) ; Cynthia Petion (individual)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty
—
Disgorgement
—
Prejudgment interest
—
Total relief
—
Alleged gain
—
Penalty as published
C$2.5m

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. This regulator states penalties in CAD. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

Staff alleged that Nova Tech and Petion sold units of a "Percentage Allocation Management Module" through a website, social media and videos, with the site showing returns of about 3% a week, without registering and without a prospectus, then continued selling in breach of a February 2023 temporary cease trade order after the company froze withdrawals.

The tribunal's order of December 3, 2024 bans both respondents from trading and from acting as registrants or promoters permanently, bars Petion as a director or officer, imposes a joint and several administrative penalty of $2.5 million, disgorgement of $31,000 and costs of $193,333.52. In its reasons the tribunal says the respondents were not alleged to have operated a Ponzi scheme and that it did not take the promised returns into account.

No technique tag is applied. The tribunal expressly declines to treat the matter as a Ponzi scheme, discussing the term only to distinguish a case in which one was proven.

Timeline

  1. 2023-08-24 Statement of Allegations
  2. 2023-08-25 Notice of Hearing
  3. 2023-09-28 Reasons and Decision
  4. 2023-11-09 Other
  5. 2023-11-30 Reasons and Decision
  6. 2023-12-22 Reasons and Decision
  7. 2024-01-09 Reasons and Decision
  8. 2024-07-19 Reasons and Decision
  9. 2024-08-12 Reasons and Decision
  10. 2024-12-03 Reasons and Decision
  11. 2024-12-03 Reasons and Decision

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.