Was Your Investment Riskier or Less Accessible Than You Were Told?

You may have legal options if your advisor recommended high-risk, complex, concentrated, or illiquid investments that did not align with your financial circumstances or goals.

You do not need to know what type of investment you owned or whether your situation qualifies as a legal claim. Geller Law can review what happened and help you understand your options.

Signs Your Investment Portfolio May Have Been Unsuitable

In advice-based accounts, your advisor must recommend investments that fit your personal circumstances—not simply products that were available or offered higher returns. Concerns may arise if the investments did not match your:

• Risk Tolerance: Portfolio risk exceeds your comfort level.
• Investment Objectives: Products do not match your long-term goals.
• Time Horizon: Funds are locked up longer than planned.
• Liquidity Needs: Inability to access cash when needed.
• Investment Knowledge: You were placed in complex products that you did not fully understand.
• Financial Circumstances: The potential losses were greater than you could reasonably absorb.
• Portfolio Balance: Too much of your savings was concentrated in one product, strategy, manager, or investment group.

An investment does not have to become worthless before the advice may be considered unsuitable. Locked funds, unexpected losses, unclear valuations, and investments that did not fit your needs may all justify an independent legal review.

High-Risk Investments and Strategies Under Review

Sotos LLP and Geller Law are reviewing potential claims involving complex, high-risk, and illiquid investments, including:

• Private Credit: Non-bank lending investments that may involve borrower defaults, uncertain valuations, and restricted access to capital.
• Exempt Market Products: Investments sold without a prospectus that may provide less disclosure and fewer protections than publicly traded investments.
• Alternative Investment Funds: Funds that may use private assets, leverage, derivatives, or complex investment strategies.
• Mortgage-Based Investments: Products tied to mortgages or real estate lending that may carry default, valuation, and liquidity risks.
• Gated or Locked-Up Funds: Investments where withdrawals have been delayed, restricted, suspended, or stopped.
• Margin and Leverage Strategies: Borrowing to invest, which can increase both gains and losses and may result in unexpected margin calls.
• Short Selling: A complex strategy that can expose investors to substantial or potentially unlimited losses.
• Concentrated Portfolios: Situations where too much of an investor’s money was placed into one product, manager, issuer, or category of investment.

You Do Not Have to Wait for Total Loss

Investment advice may be unsuitable even before an investment becomes worthless. If your money is inaccessible, your income payments have stopped, or the investment no longer matches what you were told, it may be worth having the situation reviewed now.

You may wish to speak with a lawyer if:

• Your money is locked up: Withdrawals or redemptions have been delayed, restricted, suspended, or denied.
• The investment has been written down: The reported value has dropped, become uncertain, or no longer reflects what you expected.
• Income payments have stopped: Interest, distributions, or other expected payments have been reduced or suspended.
• You cannot get clear answers: Your advisor or investment firm cannot explain when your money will be available or what the investment is currently worth.
• The risks were not properly explained: You were not clearly told that your money could be inaccessible, difficult to value, or exposed to significant loss.
• The investment no longer fits your needs: You require access to your capital for retirement, living expenses, health costs, or another important financial obligation.
• Too much of your portfolio is exposed: A large portion of your savings is tied to one investment, manager, strategy, or group.

The legal question is not only whether the investment eventually fails. It is also whether the recommendation was suitable for you when it was made, whether the risks were properly explained, and whether your advisor responded appropriately as circumstances changed.

An early review may help preserve documents, clarify your options, and determine whether your circumstances are relevant to one of the potential group action cases currently being built by Sotos LLP and Geller Law.

How the Confidential Review Works

You do not need to know whether you have a legal claim before contacting Geller Law.

The first step is simply to explain what happened and allow the legal team to assess whether your circumstances may warrant further review.

1. Tell Us What Happened

Share what you know about the investment, the advisor or firm involved, the amount invested, any losses, and whether your money is currently locked up or difficult to access.

2. Share the Documents You Have

If the matter appears relevant, the legal team may ask to review investment statements, agreements, emails, Know-Your-Client forms, redemption notices, or other records.You do not need to locate every document before contacting Geller Law.

3. Receive a Legal Assessment

Harold Geller and Matthew Taylor will review whether the investment recommendation, risk disclosure, portfolio concentration, supervision, or handling of your account may raise legal concerns.They will also consider whether your circumstances may be connected to one of the potential group action cases currently being built by Sotos LLP and Geller Law.The consultation is free and confidential. There is no obligation to proceed.

Why speak with Harold Geller and Matthew Taylor?

"Our Investor Protection Group brings combined decades of high-stakes securities litigation, regulatory oversight, and complex loss recovery to your case. By combining Harold Geller’s deeply established history of assisting over 1,500 Canadians against financial advisor misconduct with Matthew Taylor’s advanced litigation experience in senior appellate courts, our firm offers specialized, strategic representation designed to hold financial institutions accountable."

Harold Geller

Partner, Sotos LLP

Harold’s practice focuses on securities litigation, investor protection, and financial services disputes. He has more than 30 years of experience representing investors in matters involving investment losses, unsuitable financial advice, professional negligence, advisor misconduct, and related disputes.

Harold has assisted more than 1,500 Canadians in recovering losses and has held leadership and advisory roles relating to investor advocacy, consumer protection, and financial services regulation, including prior service on investor-focused advisory bodies connected to the OSC, CIRO, FSRA, and OBSI.

416-863-5603
‍hgeller@sotos.ca

Matthew W. Taylor

Senior Associate, Sotos LLP

Matthew’s practice focuses on complex investment, securities, and class action litigation. He represents plaintiffs in high-stakes disputes involving financial loss, professional liability, and technical evidence.

He has appeared before the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, and serves as a supervising lawyer at the Osgoode Hall Law School Investor Protection Clinic.

416-572-7315
‍mtaylor@sotos.ca

Frequently Asked Questions