Decision in brief: Odorico, Application for Review, Motion for stay and request for confidentiality, March 1, 2023

Mark Odorico, sought to stay (delay the implementation) of two decisions of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) until his application for a review of those decisions had been decided by the Tribunal: an IIROC merits decision and a penalty decision. Without a stay, he would have to pay the financial sanctions that IIROC imposed and he would be permanently banned from registering with IIROC.

Odorico also asked that the transcript of this hearing be confidential because he talked about sensitive personal information during the hearing.

The Tribunal dismissed Odorico’s request for a stay because he did not satisfy the legal test. One part of that test says that to get a stay, you have to prove that you would suffer irreparable harm (in other words, harm that money can’t make up for or otherwise be fixed) if the stay is not granted. Odorico did not prove that a stay would change his employment prospects or reduce the damage to his reputation that had already occurred. The Tribunal said that financial hardship or an inability to pay the fine that IIROC imposed is not irreparable harm.

The Tribunal did not grant Odorico’s request that the entire transcript of the hearing be confidential. The Tribunal did decide that certain portions of the transcript should be redacted (blacked out or removed) from the version that would be available to the public. Those portions contain intimate details about Odorico’s health and some personal and family issues. They are highly sensitive, they go to personal dignity, and they don’t affect his request for a stay. For those portions of the transcript, Odorico’s privacy outweighs the principle that Tribunal hearings should be open to the public.

However, the details of Odorico’s health and financial circumstances that do relate to his motion for a stay and his application for a review of the IIROC decisions should remain public.