{"id":12920,"date":"2026-04-21T10:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/12920\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:41:23","slug":"fidelity-clearing-canada-sues-ex-manager-over-missing-client-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/12920\/","title":{"rendered":"Fidelity Clearing Canada sues ex-manager over missing client funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Fidelity Investments Canada subsidiary, Fidelity Clearing Canada, has reimbursed all clients fully and is actively pursuing all appropriate legal avenues against the former employee. REUTERS\/Brian Snyder\/File PhotoBrian Snyder\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC has launched a $470,000 claim against one of its former managers, alleging he used his position to steal client funds while he was still serving a conditional sentence for fraud against his previous employer, TD Canada Trust. <\/p>\n

In a statement of claim filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, Fidelity Clearing alleges Jason Mak, a service delivery manager with the transaction back-office support provider, misrepresented his work history to get the job before withdrawing close to $270,000 from at least 11 client accounts over seven months in 2025.<\/p>\n

In addition to the return of the missing money, the company is seeking another $200,000 in punitive damages from Mr. Mak, plus further damages for its investigation costs, the increase in risk management and carrying costs, and loss of good will and reputation caused by his actions. It\u2019s also seeking a tracing order and injunction to prevent Mr. Mak from disposing of assets while the legal action proceeds. <\/p>\n

None of the allegations has been proven in court, and Mr. Mak of Markham, Ont., has denied \u201ceach and every allegation\u201d made in Fidelity Clearing\u2019s claim in his statement of defence. <\/p>\n

Mr. Mak did not respond to a request for comment via an e-mail address and phone number listed in his court filings, and his lawyer declined to provide a comment. <\/p>\n

Chris Pepper, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC\u2019s vice-president of corporate affairs, provided a statement via e-mail, saying the firm was \u201climited in what we can say,\u201d as this is an ongoing legal matter. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can confirm is that the small number of clients affected have been fully reimbursed. We take incidents like this extremely seriously and are actively pursuing all appropriate legal avenues,\u201d Mr. Pepper said.<\/p>\n

According to the statement of claim, Fidelity Clearing hired Mr. Mak as a service delivery representative in March, 2023. The company, which is registered under Canadian securities laws as a carrying broker and operates independently of its affiliate Fidelity Investments Canada, provides back-office services to registered brokers, dealers, portfolio managers and investment advisors, holding clients\u2019 assets on behalf of introducing brokers.<\/p>\n

Fidelity Clearing says Mr. Mak passed a pre-hiring background check carried out by the firm and a third-party contractor, based in part on two references provided by Mr. Mak. By January, 2025, he had been promoted to service delivery manager, the claim says, making him the point person for introducing brokers and portfolio management clients with service-related inquiries. <\/p>\n

Soon after, Fidelity Clearing alleges Mr. Mak made the first of at least 19 fraudulent withdrawals. Between April and November, 2025, when he was terminated for just cause, the company claims Mr. Mak made the withdrawals from 11 different client accounts, in amounts ranging from $1 to $48,750.<\/p>\n

Fidelity Clearing\u2019s claim says it was first alerted to an issue in early November, 2025 by an introducing broker who noticed a fraudulent withdrawal from their account several months prior. Mr. Mak was dismissed two weeks later, on Nov. 21, following an internal investigation.<\/p>\n

It was during the investigation that the company says it discovered Mr. Mak had been criminally convicted of defrauding his previous employer, TD Bank, while working for Fidelity Clearing. <\/p>\n

According to the claim, Mr. Mak received a conditional sentence of two years less a day, 12 months probation and a fine of $200 in April, 2024 for a single count of fraud over $5,000. <\/p>\n

Mr. Mak was also prohibited from working at a financial institution with access to financial transactions. Two other charges related to his time at TD were withdrawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn direct breach of the company\u2019s policies, [Mr.] Mak failed to disclose his criminal conviction during the term of his employment to Fidelity. Moreover, [Mr.] Mak breached the terms of his conditional sentence by working at Fidelity, a financial institution, where he had access to financial transactions,\u201d the claim states. \u201cFidelity would not have continued to employ [Mr.] Mak if he had disclosed his criminal conviction as required.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fidelity Clearing alleges in its claim that Mr. Mak used the company\u2019s service delivery users mailbox to send e-mails to another internal mailbox, requesting that his personal bank accounts be listed as payees on various client accounts. The claim alleges Mr. Mak impersonated Fidelity Clearing colleagues and produced forged client signatures and documents to support his requests, before executing the transfers. <\/p>\n

After withdrawals were processed, Fidelity Clearing\u2019s claim says Mr. Mak took steps to delete his personal accounts from the list of approved payees on the client accounts. <\/p>\n

The company says its investigators linked the service delivery emails to an IP address connected with Mr. Mak\u2019s home address. By the time they contacted the receiving bank about the accounts allegedly belonging to Mr. Mak, the accounts had already been emptied, the claim says. <\/p>\n

According to documents filed with the Ontario Court of Justice, Mr. Mak was arrested by the Toronto Police Service on Nov. 18 and is currently out on bail, facing a charge of fraud over $5,000, as well as two further criminal charges relating to the alleged transfer and possession of property obtained by crime. <\/p>\n

Fidelity Clearing filed its civil case two months later, on Jan. 16. <\/p>\n

In a statement of defence filed in March, Mr. Mak denies \u201ceach and every allegation\u201d in Fidelity Clearing\u2019s claim. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant denies that he unlawfully took, misappropriated, converted, or otherwise improperly dealt with any funds or property belonging to the plaintiff,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cAny actions taken by the Defendant during his relationship with the Plaintiff were undertaken lawfully and within the scope of his role or authority, or were otherwise lawful,\u201d Mr. Mak adds later in the document, asking for the claim against him to be dismissed, with costs in his favour.<\/p>\n

Dave Oswald, the founder of Forensic Restitution, a fraud detection and recovery firm in Oakville, Ont., says policies about disclosure of criminal convictions don\u2019t offer employers much protection because the onus is on the employee to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no easy way to check who has been criminally convicted in Canada. There\u2019s no database that employers can go to, and it\u2019s not realistic for them to continually monitor all the courts to find out if any of their employees have been charged,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Reference checks are also a tricky area, Mr. Oswald adds, particularly in the competitive world of finance, in which in-demand workers may not wish to alert their current employer they\u2019re exploring other employment options. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou see it all the time where someone asks the new employer not to contact their previous [employer] or gives the names of a couple of colleagues they don\u2019t mind you talking to,\u201d Mr. Oswald says. \u201cThere could be legitimate reasons for doing that, but it should also be a red flag.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Fidelity Investments Canada subsidiary, Fidelity Clearing Canada, has reimbursed all clients fully and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[136,17,3556,484],"class_list":{"0":"post-12920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-appwebview","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-globe-advisor","11":"tag-noastack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}