Northumberland Wind Field Inc. has been ordered to pay a $5,000 penalty for contravening Nova Scotia securities and economic development regulations.
The Scotsburn corporation admitted Thursday in a hearing before commissioner Walter Thompson that it didn’t tell investors it was to be operated as a blind pool — a limited partnership that doesn’t specify the properties the general partner plans to acquire — rather than as an active company.
It also acknowledged that it didn’t disclose it would use capital raised in a 2007 public offering to invest in other wind fields.
Northumberland used $118,774 of $187,290 raised from 42 investors to buy into Colchester-Cumberland Wind Field Inc., Fundy Tidal Inc., Wind Horse Power Inc. and Scotian WindFields Inc.
It spent $87,774 of the money on 500,000 shares of Scotian WindFields.
The commission concluded that Northumberland didn’t intentionally violate the Securities Act or mislead investors on purpose.
Corporation president Sharon Henderson, who participated in the hearing by teleconference from Scotsburn, called the infractions an inadvertent error by past management.
She acknowledged that the securities violations were a negative for Northumberland but said investors remain confident in the corporation and its plans to build wind turbines.
Northumberland, which said in August that it intended to have a wind turbine up and running in Pictou County within two years, was charged a $4,000 administrative penalty and $1,000 in costs.
In other commission hearings Thursday, two insiders — people with access to key information before it is made public — with The Helical Corp., a Halifax software company, were each ordered to pay $2,500 in penalties and $500 in costs for failing to register as insiders.
According to an agreed statement, William Fleming admitted he violated the Securities Act by failing to register as an insider after buying 60,000 common Helical shares on Sept. 15, 2006, for $1,900.
Under securities regulations, he was required to file a report on the purchase within 10 days of the end of September 2006.
Fleming sold the shares for $1,800 on Jan. 15, 2007, when he was no longer an insider.
The commission ruled Fleming wasn’t aware he had to register as an insider or file insider reports on trades and hadn’t intentionally violated the act or deliberately misled investors.
Emeric Neil Black bought 115,000 Helical shares on May 6, 2005, while he was a company director, making him an insider. He sold 10,000 shares on Sept. 2, 2005, and 50,000 shares on Dec. 14, 2005, without filing insider trading reports, according to an agreed statement.
The commission concluded that Black didn’t deliberately violate the Securities Act or intentionally mislead investors.
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