Answer: Registrants are often asked by their clients, as trusted advisors, to act as their trustee under family trusts, executors under their will or as powers of attorney. The potential issue with accepting any of these roles for a registrant is that they may present a material conflict of interest. For instance, if a client is deceased and the advisor takes on the role of the executor of the estate, he or she will be required to review the registrant’s work and decide if the investments are still appropriate, and potentially whether the executor should even keep the assets with the advisor or the advisor’s firm. The conflict becomes most obvious if the registrant is responsible for reviewing his or her own work.
While the CSA chose not to explicitly prohibit such relationships in the Client Focused Reforms, personal financial dealings are referenced in certain IIROC and MFDA rules. For example, in IIROC rule 3115. Personal financial dealings, there is a prohibition on acting as a power of attorney, trustee, executor or otherwise having full or partial control or authority over the financial affairs of a client except in limited circumstances, such as when the client is a related person as defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) and control is exercised in accordance with firm policies and procedures, or in the case of certain control granted in a discretionary account. The CSA is also of the view that a registrant having full control or authority over the financial affairs of a client may create a material conflict of interest. So, if a firm is not going to avoid this conflict, it should create a specific procedure to ensure that these conflicts are identified and are addressed in the client’s best interest. For example, specific pre-approval from the CCO could be obtained, based on a justification of why such activity would be in the best interests of the client in the specific instance, and procedures to manage the potential conflict such as having the individual advisor recuse himself or herself on matters involving the appointment of an investment manager could be implemented, where possible.
We understand that simply being appointed an executor in a will does not currently amount to a disclosable OBA in Form 31-103F4, and will only become disclosable once a registrant steps into that role and is vested with the powers of the office of an executor. We believe the same logic could apply to other powers of attorney as well, depending on the type of powers granted.
May 31, 2021