In order to resolve disciplinary proceedings before a Panel of CPABC’s Disciplinary Committee concerning professional misconduct alleged against the Member, they have agreed to the voluntary suspension of their membership in the Organization of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (“CPABC”) and the voluntary suspension of public practice licensure for a period of 14 months, commencing on January 8, 2024.
The professional misconduct alleged against the Member includes several breaches of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia’s Rules of Professional Conduct, a breach of the British Columbia Chartered Professional Accountants Act, and numerous breaches of the CPABC Code of Professional Conduct, including borrowing from a complainant, soliciting or facilitating a loan from a client, failing to oversee accounting and other corporate records for two companies engaged in a vehicle sales and leasing business which the Member was involved in, failing to confirm the filing of corporate tax returns for the companies involved in the vehicle sales and leasing business, entering into loan agreements with a third party as a director on behalf of one of the companies in the vehicle sales and licensing business at a time when the company had been de-registered and dissolved due to their failure to oversee the filing of an annual report for this company, failing to adequately comply as required by CPABC to change the name of their firm in order to ensure it did not mislead the public by implying that there was more than one CPA working there, and failing to cooperate with CPABC’s regulatory processes by failing to provide sufficient information and documents in a timely manner as requested by CPABC’s Investigator and making numerous inaccurate and misleading statements to the Investigator and to CPABC’s Investigation Committee.
The Member has admitted to the above allegations that CPABC has made, and has also agreed to pay $35,000.00 towards CPABC’s costs of the disciplinary proceedings it has incurred to date. During the period of the voluntary suspension of the Member’s membership in CPABC and voluntary suspension of public practice licensure, the Member cannot use or display the designations “Chartered Professional Accountant”, “Chartered Accountant”, or “Professional Accountant”, the initials “CPA”, “CA”, “CPA, CA”, or “PA”, in any manner imply, suggest, or hold out that they are a Chartered Professional Accountant or Professional Accountant, or engage in providing or offering to provide public accounting services or other regulated services to the public.