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In Ishaan Ahuja v. Ontario (CEO of FSRA), Jacqueline Houston acted successfully for an applicant seeking the renewal of his insurance agent licences before the Financial Services Tribunal, and then successfully resisted FSRA's appeal of the Tribunal's decision to the Divisional Court.

The respondent Financial Services Regulatory Authority (“FSRA”) proposed to refuse to renew the applicant’s licences, primarily on the basis that the applicant had made material misstatements or omissions on multiple licencing renewal applications. FSRA sought a complete non-renewal of both licences, arguing that even a conditional renewal would be insufficient to protect the public interest in the circumstances. 

The Tribunal directed FSRA to renew both licences on conditions proposed by the applicant, a one-year supervision period and an administrative monetary penalty. 

In granting the conditional renewals, the Tribunal agreed with our firm's submission that the mere fact of a false statement on a licencing application does not necessitate a licence refusal. It is one of several factors to be considered in determining an applicant’s licencing suitability:

"The statutory test remains, does the CEO have reasonable grounds for believing the Applicant is not suitable to be licensed. Put differently, do the false statements made by Mr. Ahuja, in all the circumstances of this case, provide the credible and compelling evidence necessary to establish an objective basis for the belief that the applicant is not suitable to be licensed. In my view they do not.” 

FSRA appealed to the Divisional Court, alleging that the Tribunal committed several errors of law and mixed fact and law in directing FSRA to renew the applicant's licenses, subject to certain conditions. 

The Divisional Court ultimately dismissed the appeal, finding that FSRA's various arguments were really just different ways of taking issue with the Tribunal's weighing of the evidence, which was entitled to substantial deference. The Divisional Court held that FSRA had failed to demonstrate any reversible error, and that the Tribunal's finding that the applicant was suitable to be licensed was within the range of reasonable options available. As such, the Divisional Court dismissed the appeal.