Concrete Equities executives found guilty

Four former executives of Calgary-based Concrete Equities have been found guilty by the Alberta Securities Commission of breakingprovincial securities laws and misleading investors with "heart-rending" effects.

Vincenzo De Palma, Varun Vinny Aurora, David Jones and David Humeniuk, the ASC said, "acted illegally [and] with an irresponsibility that played a direct part in what befell investors".

More than 3,700 investors, most from Calgary, lost more than $100 million through their dealingswith the investment fund.

"Had investors been given a prospectus and been advised by a broker," the ASC said in a ruling posted on its website Friday, "the losses we heard ofand the sometimes heart-rending effects on lives and familiesmight have been avoided."

Investorswho said they were devastated by their losseswatched the hearings closely.

Concrete Equities and associated businesses sold investors securities derived froma fund which invested in office buildings in Calgary and land deals in Mexico.

Made worse by downturn

The ASC found that each of the four acted as a securities dealer without being registered and to have traded for his own benefit without issuing a required prospectus, a document that outlines investment risks in detail.

It found three of them all but De Palma had lied to investors.

On June 10, 2009, a court ordered Concrete Equities into receivership, leaving some investors with only pennies on the dollar and others with no more than 50 per cent of their original investments.

The ASC found Concrete Equities "to have been an accident waiting to happen, the scale of the wreckage perhaps only accelerated and amplified by the economic downturn of 2008."

Penalties are to be decided at a future hearing.