incorporate a numbered company in order to buy a restaurant. Subsequently, he informed her that his uncle’s foundation was interested in investing in real estate and therefore wanted to wire money to her firm’s trust account. Accordingly, a total of $604,770.16 was wired to the account in May 2015, which was identified by the panel as the first suspicious transaction. However, not long after, the client claimed that his uncle’s offer on the property was not accepted and that the money wired to the trust account had to be returned.
According to the panel’s decision, this pattern continued over the next 22 months, as funds were wired from several countries, including Panama and Singapore. However, Louie Yen had failed to inquire the client regarding the source of the funds and had not spoken to the client’s uncle either. “At the time of the first deposit, she did not know the uncle’s name, the name of his foundation, whether the funds would be coming from the uncle personally or his foundation, the uncle’s address, employer or occupation, his level of wealth or the origins of the funds,” the decision said.
Nevertheless, the transactions were flagged by the executives at Royal Bank of Canada, who opened four inquiries into the matter. Here, the hearing panel pointed out that although Louie Yen gained no benefit from allowing these transactions, she had been “wilfully blind” to how her firm’s trust account was being used and had repeatedly breached her professional responsibilities.
