The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) has revoked the licence of a former life agent who bought real estate with client money and who also faces ongoing criminal charges and civil cases.
Robert Randall Hawken and his company, Dufferin Insurance Group, in London, Ont., are no longer suitable to be licensed, FSRA said in a release on Thursday.
Hawken misappropriated funds from clients and provided false and misleading information to them, and on eight licence renewal applications from 2009 to 2023, according to FSRA’s proposal to revoke his licence, dated Nov. 21, 2024. On the renewal applications, Hawken falsely declared he conducted business only in the name under which he was licensed, the proposal said.
Hawken was licensed as a life insurance and accident and sickness agent since 1994, it said, and was contracted with managing general agency Financial Horizons until March 2024, when he was terminated for cause.
On the last day of April 2024, FSRA received a complaint from a client concerned about his inherited investments, the proposal said, because police had told the client that Hawken was under investigation for fraud.
As reported last year by The London Free Press, police had contacted people affected by a potential fraud last spring after receiving a tip from a staff member at Hawken’s company, and several lawsuits were subsequently filed against Hawken.
In May 2024, Hawken confirmed to FSRA that he used money from the complaining client’s mother and from other clients to buy properties.
In that same month, Manulife submitted a life agent misconduct report to FSRA about Hawken, based on an investigation by both Manulife and Financial Horizons, which found that Hawken misappropriated more than $2 million from more than 20 clients, FSRA’s proposal said.
“Hawken demonstrated incompetence and untrustworthiness by misrepresenting to his insurance clients that he was investing their funds when in fact he was using their funds for his own personal use,” the proposal said.
Hawken’s licence would have expired on May 30, 2025. He didn’t request a hearing before the Financial Services Tribunal or contest FSRA’s proposal to revoke his licence, the regulator said in Thursday’s release.
Last month, the Free Press reported a notice of garnishment of $7,700 was issued against Hawken as part of an ongoing $580,000 lawsuit launched in September.