The battle of the acronyms continues as the Canadian federal police force merges some of its investigative staff with that of the Ontario Securities Commission in the fight against financial fraud.

Canada’s largest securities regulator has told the press that it and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police plan to house their enforcement teams in the same building, the better to fight financial fraud. Specifically, the RCMP's Integrated Market Enforcement Team (IMET) in Ontario is going to move its 28 people into OSC headquarters in Toronto.

IMETs are RCMP-led units that detect, investigate and deter capital markets fraud. Prosecution is their aim, so the Department of Justice (akin to an attorney-general's office) is heavily involved. IMETs are deployed in the major markets of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary and are equipped to respond swiftly to major capital markets fraud anywhere in Canada.

The OSC has made much of enforcement in the last five years. It began 22 'proceedings' in the calendar year of 2014, eight of which went to court. Of these eight, six were pursuant to s122 Securities Act (Ontario). In 2013, the OSC took six cases to court.

'Proceedings' were concluded against a total of 91 individuals and companies in 2014. Of these, 87 respondents had their proceedings concluded before the OSC's tribunal. In the other matters, two defendants were convicted under provincial securities legislation and two of other crimes. Two of the four went to prison, one for three years. Both jail sentences were the result of the OSC investigating in partnership with the police.

An OSC bigwig told the press: "The collaboration between OSC Staff and police, particularly in the Joint Serious Offences Team, is producing impressive results in targeting misconduct, including convictions on criminal charges. Since its inception in May 2013, the JSOT has investigated 22 matters, executed more than 80 search warrants, brought five cases before the courts on criminal matters and another nine on quasi-criminal proceedings."

Recently, the OSC proposed a new policy (comment period ends on 4 May) of rewarding people who wished to become informants. It wants to award such 'whistleblowers' financial incentives of up to $1½ million upon the final resolution of an administrative enforcement matter. This seems a trifle ungenerous as most of them will never find jobs in financial services again.