10 supermarket, union executives charged with pension mismanagement
June 29, 2006 CBC News

The trustees of one of Canada's biggest pension funds have been charged with mismanagement after Ontario's pension regulator alleged they invested more than $225 million of their workers' pension money in questionable Caribbean resorts.

The Financial Services Commission of Ontario said on Wednesday it has laid 15 charges against trustees of the Canadian Commercial Workers Industry Pension Plan, claiming they broke the conditions of the Ontario Pension Benefits Act with numerous major investments over a two-year period.

The people charged include senior executives of the major supermarket chains and senior officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 310,000 mainly supermarket employees.

The charges are regulatory, not criminal. Each carries a penalty of up to $100,000.

The FSCO said it has laid charges against eight current and two former trustees of the pension fund, claiming they failed to exercise due care when investing their workers' savings.

The trustees allegedly invested about $166 million in real estate companies and Caribbean developments run by a defrocked priest. They also invested more than 10 per cent of the plan's assets with a small number of associated persons or affiliated companies in violation of the pension rules, the FSCO claimed...."

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/06/29/pension-thurs.html