Mutual fund company Franklin Templeton will pay a penalty of $49.1 million for allowing market timing to take place in some of its funds, the Ontario Securities Commission ruled Thursday.

The money, plus interest, will go to past and present investors in the affected funds. Exact payment details have yet to be worked out.

The level of compensation will depend on which funds the client invested in, how much they invested, and how long they held their investment.

In December, Ontario's securities watchdog approved settlement agreements totalling $156.5 million with four other fund companies – I.G. [Investors Group] Investment Management, AGF Funds Inc., AIC Ltd. and CI Fund Management.

Three bank-owned investment dealers were also penalized.

Among the fund companies penalized in December, AIC faced the biggest payout – $58.8 million will go to unitholders affected by the market timing. CI Mutual Funds will pay out $49.3 million, AGF Funds' tab will be $29.2 million and I.G. Investment Management will pay $19.2 million.

The settlement with Franklin Templeton brings to an end a regulatory probe that began 16 months ago into potential trading abuses in Canada's huge mutual fund industry.

While market timing is not contrary to securities laws, the OSC sees several problems with the practice.

What is market timing?
Market timing occurs when mutual fund securities are bought and sold quickly to take advantage of short-term discrepancies between the current price of a security that may be trading in overseas markets and the stated value of that security held by the fund.

For one thing, fund companies supposedly have policies designed to discourage short-term trading.

In Franklin Templeton's case, the OSC said many of the fund prospectuses said the funds were supposed to charge unitholders fees of up to two per cent if they held their units for less than 90 days. That was meant to compensate the funds for the extra costs incurred by rapid trading.

"Franklin Templeton did not place limits on the frequent trading market timing activity of the market timing traders," the OSC said in a statement Thursday.

The OSC alleged that Franklin Templeton's conduct in not restraining the rapid traders was "contrary to the public interest" because frequent trading costs long-term unitholders money.

"When certain investors engage in frequent trading market timing in foreign funds, and when those investors are not required to pay a proportionate fee to the fund, the economic interest of long-term unitholders of these foreign funds is adversely affected," the OSC said.

Franklin Templeton has about 90 mutual funds available to Canadians with $20.2 billion under management. It is the ninth largest fund company in Canada.