OSC v. Dino Paolucci (pump and dump, 2020)

Judgment entered

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In 2020 the Ontario Securities Commission, in an expedited inter-jurisdictional proceeding, ordered permanent market bans on Dino Paolucci, a Mississauga stock promoter who had pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to four counts of securities fraud and been sentenced to 84 months in prison. The U.S. conduct, which the Statement of Allegations describes as pump-and-dump promotion of penny stocks with coordinated trading, ran from 2012 to 2013. The Tribunal order carries no monetary sanction.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the regulator announced this matter on August 5, 2020 as release 2020-25. The respondents named are Dino Paolucci (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the Capital Markets Tribunal (Ontario).

The OSC matter reciprocates a U.S. criminal conviction. Staff alleged that Paolucci promoted OTC penny stocks, including LiveWire Ergogenics, YaFarm Technologies, Resource Ventures and Refill Energy, while knowing that others were coordinating trading to create a false appearance of an active market, with nominee entities hiding who controlled the shares. He pleaded guilty on September 6, 2019 and was sentenced on December 10, 2019 to 84 months, with forfeiture of US$2 million. On December 21, 2020 the Tribunal ordered permanent trading, acquisition, officer-and-director and registrant/promoter bans; it imposed no monetary sanction. This library tags the matter as pump and dump: the Statement of Allegations describes coordinated promotion and trading by controlling holders, and does not allege undisclosed payment for publicity.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

The underlying U.S. prosecution is a separate criminal matter; the Ontario order follows from the conviction rather than re-deciding the facts.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2020-08-04 Statement of Allegations
2. 2020-08-05 Notice of Hearing
3. 2020-12-21 Reasons and Decision
4. 2020-12-21 Reasons and Decision

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• Tribunal proceeding
• Statement of Allegations
• Notice of Hearing
• Reasons and Decision
• Reasons and Decision

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.