B.C. couple can't use bankruptcy to get out of paying $19M to regulator, appeal court rules

For the second time in a year, British Columbia's highest court has dismissed an appeal from a couple attempting to use bankruptcy to rid themselves of millions of dollars in penalties imposed by the province's financial markets regulator.

For the second time in a year, British Columbia's highest court has dismissed an appeal from a couple attempting to use bankruptcy to rid themselves of millions of dollars in penalties imposed by the province's financial markets regulator.

Thalbinder Singh Poonian and Shailu Poonian owe the B.C. Securities Commission a combined $19 million for market manipulation that a panel of the commission found them to have committed.

The total includes $13.5 million in administrative penalties and $5.5 million in "disgorgement of their ill-gotten gains," according to a statement from the BCSC. 

In November, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from the couple in which they argued that the master who handled their application for discharge from bankruptcy had erred in various ways when deciding not to release them from their BCSC debt.

That appeal was dismissed, with the trio of appeal judges agreeing there was "no merit in any of the grounds of appeal identified by the appellants." 

The couple brought their most recent appeal against an order from the B.C. Supreme Court that declared their BCSC debts could not be released through the bankruptcy process.

In a decision issued earlier this month, the appeal court again rejected the couple's arguments.