Therol E. L. Voche

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Respondent, an Attorney-at-Law and President of investment company VCIL, induced Mr. Dujon to invest US$60,000 partly on the basis of his professional status. After VCIL's securities licence was suspended and the client requested redemption, the Respondent signed a series of letters giving false assurances about VCIL's financial position and purportedly rolling over the investment despite having no authority to do so, knowing the company was in receivership. The Committee found beyond reasonable doubt that this conduct was deceitful and dishonest, breaching Canons I(b), I(c) and IV(j). Guided by Bolton v Law Society, the Committee ordered that the Respondent be struck off the Roll and pay $50,000 costs to the complainant and $30,000 costs to the Disciplinary Committee. The Respondent did not appear.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No conflict between current clients
• Firm governance, systems and compliance
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Proven dishonesty beyond reasonable doubt
• Respondent stood to gain personal advantage from deceit
• Repeated false assurances over an extended period (April to September 1998)
• Complainant never recovered his US$60,000 investment
• Exploited his status as an Attorney-at-Law to induce the investment

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=80000"]