Received this from Canada Stockwatch in tonight's e-mail...
Stockwatch: Street Wire: VSE, BCSC quiet on Canaccord matter
B.C. Securities Commission - Street Wire
VSE, BCSC quiet on Canaccord matter
See Vancouver Stock Exchange (VSE) Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
While stock market regulators on both sides of the border claim to take a dim view of shady dealings in the OTC Bulletin Board market and any concerted stock manipulations, the BCSC's southern uncle inspires more fear than does the northern nephew. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, has come down hard on the key American perpetrators in the Sky Scientific rig job, but the British Columbia Securities Commission and the Vancouver Stock Exchange have yet to take any serious notice of Canaccord Capital's mystery account executive, or to censure Canaccord for failure to supervise either the account executive or its trading desk. (Readers wishing an outline of the Sky case can refer to a Streetwire of Nov. 17 under the symbol VSE.)
In its well-documented 51-page initial decision, released eight months ago and presumably read by the staff of Doug Hyndman's BCSC and Michael Johnson's soon-to-be-gone VSE, the SEC gives Canaccord full credit for its role in the Sky manipulation. The SEC notes that scores of trades were regularly set up between Canaccord and Gilbert Marshall, a U.S. bucket shop shut down over the Sky debacle. "With this infrastructure in place, the promoters were able to manipulate the price of Sky stock through wash trades and 'cleaning the street'," states the SEC.
The U.S. regulator notes that "wash trades occurred in the Canaccord accounts on 96 days between April 1993 and December 1994." Frequently, the shares were purchased at higher prices than they had been sold for earlier in the day.
"I find that the wash trades created a deceptive and fraudulent appearance of market activity by interfering with the free forces of supply and demand. I further find that the practice of 'taking out the low bid or 'cleaning the street' was likewise calculated to interfere with the natural operation of market forces by altering the price of the stock and manufacturing the appearance of legitimate trading activity," stated SEC administrative law judge Robert Mahony.
He does not speculate on whether the Canaccord orders could have been entered by a blind salesman, executed by a blind trader and supervised by a blind manager -- or whether Canaccord was simply duped.
KJC |
