The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from a West Vancouver businessman who faces a US$29 million penalty tied to an alleged international pump-and-dump stock fraud.

The high court declined to hear the appeal of Frederick Langford Sharp, a B.C. man in his 70s who has been pursued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that he played a central role in a large-scale stock manipulation scheme. As is customary, the Supreme Court of Canada did not provide reasons for refusing leave to appeal.

The case relates to U.S. penalties that were found enforceable in British Columbia in a 2024 B.C. Supreme Court judgment. In 2022, a U.S. Federal Court issued a US$53 million judgment against Sharp after he did not respond to the SEC’s allegations.

The U.S. regulator alleged that Sharp was the mastermind of a roughly $1 billion international pump-and-dump scheme involving penny stock companies. According to the allegations, the scheme used sophisticated platforms to conceal control over millions of shares before those shares were sold into the market.

Pump-and-dump schemes typically involve secretly accumulating low-priced stocks, promoting them through misleading or false information, and then selling the shares at inflated prices. When the promotion ends and the price falls, investors who bought during the inflated period can be left with significant losses.

Sharp’s U.S. judgment included approximately US$28.9 million in profits allegedly obtained through the scheme between 2011 and 2019, plus interest, as well as a civil penalty of nearly US$24 million. The SEC later brought proceedings in British Columbia to enforce the profit-related portion of the judgment.

In 2024, a B.C. court also ordered a freezing order over assets connected to Sharp and others allegedly involved in the stock fraud. Sharp and others also face criminal charges in the United States arising from the alleged scheme.

The allegations and criminal charges have not been proven in court.

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Originally published on Canadian Fraud News.