VANCOUVER – The BC Securities Commission says Vancouver businessman Arthur Griffiths has agreed to pay $30,000 for securities violations after investors in a cannabis company he headed lost their money.
The commission says Griffiths — the former owner of the Vancouver Canucks and Vancouver Grizzlies — was the chief executive officer of RoccaVerde Wellness Corp. in 2019 when the company sold more than $192,000 in shares to investors without filing a required prospectus document outlining the investment.
A settlement agreement between Griffiths and the commission says the company retained “finders” to seek out “accredited investors” before Griffiths became a company director, but that he took “insufficient steps” after being brought on to make sure the finders were following regulations.
The agreement says accredited investors are exempt from the Securities Act’s prospectus requirements, but many of the investors referred by the finders were not accredited, and Griffiths admitted he didn’t do enough to ensure that RoccaVerde complied with the act.
It says Griffiths “authorized, permitted or acquiesced” to the company’s contraventions of the act, but that he admitted the misconduct before a hearing, co-operated with commission investigators and “expressed remorse for his misconduct.”
Griffiths was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2016, and a biography on the hall’s website says he was forced to sell the Canucks, the Vancouver Grizzlies NBA franchise and Rogers Arena in 1997, a “heartbreaking move” in part due to the weakness of the Canadian dollar.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 29, 2025.
