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If you’ve bought CIBC mutual funds, you might be eligible for a piece of an $11-million settlement — and the deadline to apply is fast approaching.
Anyone who held units of a CIBC mutual fund or a Renaissance mutual fund on or before Sept. 5, 2025 is eligible for compensation, except those investors who held the funds through a discount broker. (Renaissance Investments is a subsidiary of CIBC.)
The class-action lawsuit alleges that trailing commissions were incorrectly paid out to discount brokers — those like Scotia iTRADE or Wealthsimple, which let investors execute trades but don’t usually provide personalized financial planning.
Trailing commissions are paid to mutual fund dealers or advisers to compensate for their advice. The class action alleged that since no advice is given by discount brokers, the fees are “excessive, inflated and/or unearned.”
CIBC was also allegedly paying those trailing commissions with funds from its mutual fund assets. The settlement isn’t an admission of guilt by CIBC or the CIBC Trust Corporation — the asset management wing of CIBC also named in the lawsuit.
Go Public has heard from dozens of bank fraud victims who question why banks aren’t held liable for fraud losses. The government says it’s consulting, but won’t commit to holding banks financially responsible — as happens in some other countries.
Anyone who is eligible for the settlement and currently holds CIBC or Renaissance mutual funds will be refunded automatically — no claim necessary — with their cut of the settlement deposited directly into their existing mutual funds.
But former CIBC mutual fund holders will have to submit a claim form by Nov. 18 to be eligible. That can be done online on the class-action site.
Those who held both CIBC mutual funds and Renaissance mutual funds might be compensated for both of those claims, the class-action site says.
It’s unclear exactly how much claimants could get from the settlement, but the plan of allocation shows it could be about $32, as long as there are enough funds to pay each eligible person who made a claim.
