Vancouver Sun 
BAINES: DISPATCHES FROM THE SECURITIES FIELD 

  • Vancouver Sun
  •  
  • DAVID BAINES dbaines@ vancoucersun. com

Another $ 3 million was loaned to controversial Vancouver businessman Khalid Ataya, whose company, Skymark Financial Ltd., has been involved in a variety of sketchy businesses, including a proposal to invest $ 50 million in a cashless banking system in the Philippines and, more recently, Lebanon.

The deals often involve huge dollar amounts, such as his 2008 proposal to buy one million metric tons of Russian oil every month for a year. But his record of delivering on these deals is checkered: B. C. court records show he has been named a defendant in more than a dozen lawsuits.

This is not fake.