OSC v. Donna Hutchinson, Cameron Cornish, David Sidders and Patrick Jelf Caruso (insider trading, 2017)

Judgment entered

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In 2017 the Ontario Securities Commission brought a tipping and insider trading case against a legal assistant, Donna Hutchinson, and three people she or her contact allegedly passed information to. Hutchinson settled in April 2018. After a contested hearing, the Tribunal found in October 2019 that only Cameron Cornish had traded on the information and dismissed every allegation against Patrick Jelf Caruso and David Sidders. In January 2020 Cornish received a 15-year market ban, a C$300,000 penalty and a C$128,000 disgorgement order.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

C$300k

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

The Ontario Securities Commission issued its notice of hearing on September 21, 2017 against Donna Hutchinson, Cameron Edward Cornish, David Paul George Sidders and Patrick Jelf Caruso. Staff alleged that Hutchinson, a legal assistant at a Toronto law firm, passed confidential information about eight potential corporate transactions to Cornish between 2011 and 2016, that Cornish passed some of it to Caruso and Sidders, and that the three traded.

Hutchinson settled in April 2018. The Tribunal's reasons on approving the settlement say she tipped but did not trade herself, received a few thousand dollars, and agreed to testify; she received a reprimand and a two-year ban on trading, with no penalty or disgorgement. The remaining three respondents went to a merits hearing in 2019, at which Cornish did not appear.

In its October 23, 2019 decision the Tribunal found that Cornish traded in the securities of two issuers while holding information from Hutchinson, which was illegal insider trading, and dismissed the allegation about a third issuer. It found no direct evidence that Caruso or Sidders traded on inside information. The circumstantial evidence, it said, raised suspicion in some instances but never reached the standard needed, so every allegation against both was dismissed, as were the allegations that Cornish tipped them. This record therefore shows no finding against Caruso or Sidders.

In its January 2, 2020 decision on sanctions the Tribunal ordered Cornish to stay out of the capital markets for 15 years, pay an administrative penalty of C$300,000, disgorge C$128,000 and pay C$47,500 in costs. The penalty is stored in Canadian dollars; the disgorgement figure appears here only.

This library tags the matter as insider trading. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

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

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2017-09-21 Notice of Hearing
2. 2017-10-24 Reasons and Decision
3. 2018-02-26 Reasons and Decision
4. 2018-04-20 Settlement Agreement
5. 2018-04-24 Settlement Agreement
6. 2018-04-24 Reasons and Decision
7. 2018-04-26 Other
8. 2018-04-27 Reasons and Decision
9. 2018-05-28 Statement of Allegations
10. 2018-06-08 Reasons and Decision
11. 2018-07-17 Reasons and Decision
12. 2018-07-24 Reasons and Decision
13. 2019-10-23 Merits decision: Cornish found liable; allegations against Caruso and Sidders dismissed
14. 2020-01-02 Sanctions and costs decision against Cornish

Primary documents

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

• Tribunal proceeding
• Notice of Hearing
• Reasons and Decision
• Reasons and Decision
• Settlement Agreement
• Settlement Agreement
• Reasons and Decision
• Other
• Reasons and Decision
• Statement of Allegations
• Reasons and Decision
• Reasons and Decision
• Merits decision
• Sanctions and costs decision

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

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.