Sanctions followed years after the trades
A former TD Wealth investment advisor has been barred from Alberta’s capital markets for a decade following a criminal fraud conviction, even though his employer reversed the trades and reimbursed clients in full.
In an order dated December 17, 2025, a panel of the Alberta Securities Commission ruled that Jeffrey Brian Ber must exit the province’s capital markets in most capacities for 10 years, citing public interest considerations tied to his conduct while he was a registered adviser at a Canadian bank.
The regulatory order follows criminal court findings arising from transactions carried out in 2017. In September 2024, the Alberta Court of King’s Bench found Ber guilty of two counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of corruptly accepting a $104,568.75 secret commission from Blackbird Energy Inc. In January 2025, the court sentenced Ber to seven years in jail and ordered him, for 10 years, to disclose those convictions before accepting any paid or volunteer role involving authority over another person’s money, property or valuable securities.
Court records show that in March 2017, Ber was employed as a registered investment adviser with TD Waterhouse Canada Inc., operating as TD Wealth, when he allocated about $6 million worth of Blackbird shares to client investment accounts. At the time, Blackbird was conducting a prospectus offering seeking proceeds of up to $80 million. Ber had a pre-existing friendship with Blackbird’s vice-president of business development and had assisted the company with marketing presentations to other brokers.
The conviction decision found that Ber did not disclose that relationship to clients or that he would receive compensation if they purchased Blackbird shares. The investment was considered high-risk and placed several accounts outside their stated risk tolerances. Some of the affected clients were retired seniors between the ages of 72 and 94 at the time of trial. The court also found that Ber created or was involved in creating falsified know-your-client forms that altered risk tolerances without client knowledge or consent.
TD Wealth later identified that many of the accounts were offside their approved risk profiles. The firm suspended Ber, reversed the Blackbird transactions and reimbursed clients in full, resulting in no final investor losses. However, the court found that TD Wealth had been exposed to financial risk tied to $6.751 million in Blackbird shares placed in 55 client accounts.
In considering the matter under the Securities Act (Alberta), the ASC panel stated that “while this case does not involve a scam such as a Ponzi scheme, there is an element that adds to its seriousness: the fact that Ber was a registrant when the events at issue occurred.” The panel added that Ber abused his position of trust, including with elderly clients and those on fixed incomes.
Under the ASC order, Ber must resign from most director and officer positions and, for 10 years, is barred from trading or purchasing securities or derivatives, registering under Alberta securities laws, advising, engaging in investor relations, or acting in management or consultative roles connected to the securities market, subject to limited carve-outs for certain personal accounts and family-owned private companies.
