A guilty verdict for a Montreal businessman.
Lino Matteo, the founder and president of investment company Mount Real, has been convicted on 270 counts of securities fraud dating back more than a decade.
The company, which went bankrupt in 2006, resulted in 13-hundred people losing more than 130-million dollars.
One of the victims, Janet Watson, says there's a 43-million dollar settlement in a class action, which means roughly 50 per cent of the net capital lost.
"It's closing another chapter in our long fight for the victims of Mount Real, who were fighting for justice. Now, I'm very happy, yes", said Janet Watson, one of the victims, in an interveiw with CTV.
The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), Quebec’s financial regulator, stepped in to investigate and discovered Mount Real was really a complex financial structure that even Matteo’s partners and assistants had trouble understanding.
"The evidence of the AMF eloquently showed that Mr. Matteo spoke a language that only he could understand," said Judge Helene Morin.
The company collapsed in 2006, and the victims who lost their life savings filed a class action lawsuit against the accounting firms that should have keep a close watch on the company.
The small group of investors also pressured the AMF into laying charges of securities fraud against Matteo
Matteo is scheduled to return to court September 18th.
-With files from CTV Montreal