A court has declined to discharge the debts of a B.C. woman who was involved in a Ponzi scheme, citing her repeated efforts to “resist and frustrate” the collection of fines issued against her in the case.
Renee Michelle Penko owes the B.C. Securities Commission roughly $207,000, a figure that includes $155,000 in commissions she received in the Ponzi scheme, a $40,000 administrative penalty, and interest.
In 2016, the financial regulator ordered her to pay those amounts after finding that she and others had traded in securities without having filed a prospectus and without being registered under the provincial Securities Act.
The court decision published Tuesday notes that Penko was “not a central player” in the Ponzi scheme, which was “carried out principally by Thomas Williams.”
Still, the BCSC found that Penko had made “illegal distributions to 22 investors and 31 investments with a value of $1,171,003,” according to the B.C. Supreme Court decision.
‘ORGANIZED PSEUDOLEGAL COMMERCIAL ARGUMENT’
Penko assigned herself into bankruptcy in May 2019. In September of this year, she applied to the court to discharge her debts.
Master John Bilawich denied her application, on the grounds that she had spent years attempting to avoid payment of her debt to the BCSC using “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument” tactics.
Bilawich’s decision doesn’t define that term – abbreviated throughout the decision as OPCA – but it does reference
