Smell you later Swift Trade

Swift Trade founder accused of misleading OSC
JANET MCFARLAND

Globe and Mail Update

December 7, 2007 at 11:49 AM EST

The Ontario Securities Commission has accused the founder of electronic trading company Swift Trade Securities Inc. of misleading the commission about the identity of his company's largest client.

In a statement of allegations issued Friday, the OSC said Swift Trade president Peter Beck told the commission last year that his company's largest client — accounting for half the traders executing trades through Swift Trade — was Barka Co. Ltd., controlled by a Cypriot company owned by Pavlos Aristodemou.

The OSC alleged Mr. Beck failed to disclose his wife or father were beneficial owners of Barka.

“Staff allege that at no time during the examination did Beck ever mention his wife or father were the beneficial owner(s) of the shares of Barka,” the statement of allegations says.

Mr. Beck could not immediately be reached for comment. The OSC statement does not suggest why Mr. Beck misstated Barka's ownership.

The OSC says it questioned Mr. Beck under oath last December, and Mr. Beck indicated Mr. Aristodemou was the “directing or controlling mind” behind Barka, and that Barka received all the profits from the trading activities.

The OSC alleges, however, that Barka was never in a traditional arms length client/dealer relationship with Swift Trade.

The OSC alleges Mr. Aristodemou was “merely a nominee shareholder acting upon the direction of others, and was not the directing or controlling mind of Barka.”

Swift Trade has about 2,000 proprietary traders who trade for Swift Trade clients, who are corporate investors. The traders are described as independent contractor traders who are hired by the clients. They work at Swift Trade offices and use the company's software and electronic trading platform.

The OSC said in 2006, Barka employed about 1,100 traders on its behalf, making it Swift Trade's largest client. The OSC said Barka operated about 50 international offices, including 30 offices in Canada.

Mr. Beck is accused of conduct contrary to Ontario securities law and contrary to the public interest for making “misleading or untrue” representations to the OSC and failing “to state facts that were required to be stated or that were necessary to make the statements not misleading.”

The OSC has scheduled a hearing in the matter for Jan. 18. The notice of hearing says the commission will consider a range of possible penalties, including suspending or restricting the registration of Mr. Beck or Swift Trade, prohibiting them from trading securities, or requiring them to pay penalties.


Is anyone surprised by this? Only a matter of time I guess. Have fun looking for work you Swift "traders".

 

i was a swifty a while back and found the contract to be a complete scam because we were obviously employee's not independent contractors (in fact when i started to trade a second account i was asked to either close the other account or leave swift... not a hard decision.) I wonder if this means swift will owe all its employees minimum wage and such that comes along with being an employee

 

Wow this is interesting thanks for the post....i'm sure a lot of people will be following the developments.

 

I think the title is a little misleading. Swift has endured what, 6-7 years of bashing and calls of destruction? I highly doubt they are going away anytime soon, if ever. I think this is more of an evolution from back room tactics to front line legit businesses, so they are facing more scrutiny.

 

These calls were usually from failed traders or traders who felt that Swifttrade took advantage of them. We knew from day one that Peter Beck is a shady character when we found out he sold gay porn (nothing wrong with gay people) and he associated himself with other shady characters. Now an actuall governing body where swifttrade is located was lied to by Peter Beck. He can probably go to Jail for this. I know OSC has given jail penalties before in insider trading fraud so they do have that option. If he goes to Jail or they can't trade they will be forced to close at least all the Canadian offices if not all the offices worldwide. At least for 6 months before they get a new company registered somewhere in third world country and they move and setup their servers. But how good can trading be when your server is in some third world country? So slow. Would you really want to trade for them knowing that it can all go down one day?



This is just pure hypothetical scenario that might or might not happen,and hypothetical question, One should make their own decision where too trade I am not a lawyer or have all the facts.

 

I was a swifty too, back in the day. I remember my branch manager giving us all new contracts with "Barka" on them. Everyone was asking, "Who the hell is this Barka that we're working for now?" It was always obvious that it was some shady financial wrangling. We were told to sign the new contracts or look for a new job.

I can understand Peter Beck pulling questionable moves like this, but he is not a dumbass. I'm certain he has a backup plan in place to keep this from affecting day-to-day operations.

In the meantime, if you're at Swift and you're concerned about the legality and/or ethics of your workplace, there are plenty of excellent companies out there to trade for: Genesis, Title Trade, and Golden Trade come to mind. (Disclaimer: I manage a group with Genesis.)

 

Maybe I'm missing the point on this story. What exactly is the difference when it comes to who owned Barca? If Barca was owned by Beck's wife and Barca simply contracted with Swift to gain access to the trading platform, then what is the problem?

The story doesn't read correctly and it makes it sound like the traders at Swift actually had clients that they traded for.

If anyone has some follow information on this story, it would be interesting. I don't have any vested interest or grudge, just curious.

 

Don't want to be <b>Bark</b>ing up the wrong tree, but I hope the orders on Omega get filled a lot better than Swifts do....

 

None of this will happen.

He will just keep donating 1% of his income to the OSC in the form of occasional fines.

And there is "nothing wrong with gay people".
What's not to like about dick?

 

thanks singer. i´m a swifty trader in barcelona and of course we are worry since the beginning.
what money is neccesary in the account with genesis for a 2m buying power?
which is the % of profit for the trader?
thanks