Toubani Resources Ltd T.TRE

Order......

[Bukowski007]

OSC orders Sino-Forest executives to resign
JANET MCFARLAND
09:22 EST Friday, Aug 26, 2011

The Ontario Securities Commission has ordered senior officers and directors of Sino-Forest Corp . to resign and has cease-traded the company’s shares.
The commission said in a release Friday that it has reason to believe the company and certain of its officers and directors have “misrepresented some of its revenue and/or exaggerated some of its timber holdings” and that some of the officers and directors – including chief executive officer Allen Chan – appear to be engaging in acts “they know or reasonably ought to know perpetuate a fraud.”
The order affects Mr. Chan, senior vice-president Albert Ip, vice-president Alfred Hung, vice-president George Ho and vice-president Simon Yeung. The men are also prohibited from acting as a director or officer or from trading any securities they hold.
The commission also revealed Friday that Sino-Forest recently suspended Messrs. Ho, Hung and Yeung temporarily and have curtailed Mr. Ip’s duties and responsibilities.
The regulator has taken an extremely rare step to oust top executives using a temporary order before holding a hearing to determine the merits of the allegations.
The commission said it decided that the time required to conclude a hearing “could be prejudicial to the public interest.” The order was signed by OSC chairman Howard Wetston.
The OSC’s release said it appears the company has “engaged in significant non-arm’s length transactions which may have been contrary to Ontario’s securities laws and public interest,” but did not offer any details about specific allegations of wrongdoing.
Sino-Forest has been in the spotlight since June 2, when short seller Carson Block issued a research report alleging the company was “a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme” and had systematically misstated the scope of its forestry holdings in China. The report sent the company’s shares into a nosedive and prompted the board to appoint a committee of independent directors to investigate the claims.
The committee completed an interim report, which went to the company’s board on Aug. 11, but the findings of that report have never been made public. The OSC release does not say whether the commission has received the report or whether the moves announced Friday stemmed from those findings.
© Copyright The Globe and Mail