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by Mike Caswell

The Alberta Securities Commission has imposed a five-year trading ban and a $65,000 fine on Colton Smith, an engineer and former employee of i3 Energy PLC who traded ahead of a takeover offer that the company received in August, 2024. The ASC said that Mr. Smith learned about the deal from a colleague. He then acquired 590,500 shares in the weeks leading up to the announcement of the transaction, according to the ASC.

The penalties for Mr. Smith, a resident of Calgary, are contained in a settlement agreement that the ASC released on Tuesday, Aug. 4. The agreement bars Mr. Smith from trading for five years, but it does allow him to agree to trades initiated by a registered broker who has seen a copy of the settlement. The $65,000 that he must pay includes an unspecified amount of hearing and investigative costs. The agreement represents a negotiated deal, in which Mr. Smith has admitted to the violations.

The events at issue, as set out by the ASC, go back to late 2023, when Mr. Smith worked at a subsidiary of i3 Energy. Around that period, the company began exploring "strategic alternatives," or a search for a buyer. The search was relatively brief, with the company receiving an unsolicited offer from Gran Tierra Energy Inc. in January, 2024. The deal, which was not public at the time, subsequently went through an eight-month process that included confidentiality agreements and a virtual data room.

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