CBC News reports this evening that, “Canadian securities investigators are probing a recent run on a B.C. gold mining stock and a possibility the sell-off was triggered by a leak of confidential information from inside the federal government, CBC News has learned. Shares in Taseko Mines Ltd. mysteriously dropped almost 40 per cent in frantic trading on Oct. 14, more than two weeks before Ottawa announced it was blocking the firm’s planned development of a controversial B.C. mine.”
“The federal government formally nixed the so-called Prosperity Mine on Nov. 2, citing environmental concerns about plans to turn a large, pristine lake into a toxic mine dump. Several federal officials involved in the deliberations said everything was done with the utmost secrecy, precisely to prevent a leak that might affect stock markets. But 19 days before the government made its decision public — and for no apparent reason — all hell broke loose in the trading of Taseko shares. In a matter of hours, Bloomberg reported over 30 million shares changed hands on Canadian and American stock exchanges on Oct. 14, allmost 10 times the average daily volume of trading in the preceding weeks.”
“The unexplained mini-crash of Taseko stock on Oct. 14 and the possibility of a government leak have become the targets of at least two investigations. The national stock market watchdog agency and provincial regulators all operate under a strict cloak of confidentiality, refusing to admit even whether an investigation is being conducted. But CBC News has learned that at least one irate Taseko shareholder filed a formal request for an investigation by the investment industry’s national watchdog agency. In response, the Investment Regulatory Organization of Canada assured the investor that it was reviewing the ‘unusual trading’ in Taseko stock on Oct. 14. As it happened, the watchdog agency was already on the case long before it received the investor’s complaint. …IIROC will forward its findings to the B.C. Securities Commission, which is being equally tight-lipped about any investigation it may already be conducting.”
The CBC report is at http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/11/24/f-greg-weston-taseko.html.
