Three men accused of insider trading with Quebec food distribution company Colabor obtained a stay of the case earlier this week.
• Also read: A former vice-president of the Caisse de Depot has been charged with insider trading
• Also read: The AMF is investigating Colabor’s ex-Big boss
Justice of the Peace Geneviève Claude Parayre of the Quebec Court granted the respective motions of Jean-François Neault, Justin Méthot and Claude Gariépy. The latter referred to “unreasonable delays”, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) specified in a press release published on Friday.
“The agency is examining the possibility of appealing everything,” the AMF said.
Nepotism in high positions
In that case, Mr Méthot was accused of having passed on “privileged information about the securities of the Colabor group” as vice-president of the Caisse de Depot.
Seven charges were brought against Mr. Neault, including for disclosing confidential information about Colabor’s shares. He was CFO of Colabor until 2018 before taking the same position at Innergex.
When La Presse broke the news in April 2022, he was fired from his position at Innergex. The company had asserted at the time that it was unaware of its senior executive’s problems with the AMF.
Finally, Claude Gariépy, former CEO of Colabor, was indicted for conducting an operation against Colabor’s title despite having confidential information.
The AMF has also launched an insider trading investigation into another former Colabor CEO, Lionel Ettedgui. A spokesman for the organization, Sylvain Théberge, on Friday refused to say whether that investigation was still ongoing.
Mr. Ettedgui led Colabor for a year and a half before leaving the company in August 2019. The AMF suspects he warned two people he knew well that he was about to resign, which would cause the company’s share price to fall on the stock market.
Gérard Leclerc and Alain Bracchi avoided losses of $85,700 and $10,250 respectively by selling their shares.
Before his retirement in August 2019, Colabor’s stock was trading at nearly $1 on the TSX. Today it’s worth $0.91.