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by Mike Caswell

The B.C. Securities Commission has imposed a two-year ban and $30,000 fine on Rudolph Walter Brenner, a former director of Hellix Ventures Inc., for lying to commission investigators. The BCSC said he denied having control over a private entity that drew suspicion for selling Hellix shares. His repeated concealment constituted serious misconduct, a BCSC panel has found.

The findings are contained in a decision the BCSC released on Thursday, July 24. The document describes how Mr. Brenner, through a family trust operating in Liechtenstein, opened a brokerage account that held Hellix shares. The account, which was in the name Muscatine Financial Corp., acquired 1,006,891 shares of Hellix in a private placement on March 8, 2011. (The BCSC does not say the price, but the company had a 50-cent private placement that month.) Six months later, in September, 2011, the trust sold 104,500 shares, the decision states.

According to the decision, the BCSC investigated the trades after receiving notice from the Austrian Financial Markets Authority that there had been suspicious trading in the account. (The BCSC does not say why it was suspicious, but the timing of the Hellix selling was unusual. The selling began on Sept. 8, 2011, when Hellix had rapidly risen to $1.47 with no apparent explanation. The company issued a news release that day saying it was unaware of any reason for the higher price. The selling ended on Sept. 12, when the stock was at $1.09.)

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