The Montreal Exchange has denied that its president and a board member improperly engaged in insider trading leading up to its takeover by the TSX Group.
The exchange was responding to the tabling of documents in the Quebec legislature by Parti Québécois finance critic Francois Legault.
Montreal Exchange 3-month chart
The documents said MX president Luc Bertrand bought 150,000 shares on Aug. 2, while exchange board member Jean Turmel bought 100,000 shares the same day.
Quebec Finance Minister Monique Jérôme-Forget said Quebec's securities regulator has launched an investigation into the trading.
"I am as concerned as anybody and I know that the securities commission is looking into it," she told reporters at a news conference in Quebec City.
She raised the possibility that the regulator could even block the deal.
"The AMF is the authority that has to look at all of the deal and it is the AMF that has the power to stop the deal," she said.
But the Montreal Exchange said allegations of insider trading were "unfounded."
It said in a statement: "The transactions took place between fully informed insiders; therefore no insider trading was possible."
Exchange spokesman Jean Charles Robillard told CBCNews.ca that Bertrand and Turmel bought the shares in question from two other executives and insiders who were leaving the exchange.
"By definition, when these transactions take place between insiders, there's no possibility of insider trading … because all of them have the same information," he said.
Robillard also said at the time the shares were bought in early August, the MX was not in talks with the TSX Group. Talks broke off in May 2007, he said, and didn't resume until Nov. 2. "There was no knowledge of any [pending] transaction," he said.
The final TSX-MX merger deal was announced last Monday. The agreement would see the TSX Group acquire the MX in a $1.3-billion cash and stock transaction that valued MX shares at about $42.50 at the time.
MX stock closed at $38.95 in Friday trading on the TSX.
Related
Internal Links
More Money Headlines »
- Chrysler takes over number two spot in Canadian car market
- Chrysler Canada has overtaken Ford as the second-biggest vehicle seller in the country, bumping Ford out of the position it has held for decades.
- Toyota outdrives Ford in 2007 in U.S. market
- Toyota Motor Corp. moved into second spot in the U.S. market last year as it broke Ford's grip behind General Motors.
- Gold reaches another new high
- The price of gold hit new record levels on Thursday as it reached an intraday trading high of $871.20 US an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
- Ford picks India's Tata as top bidder for Jaguar, Land Rover
- Ford Motor Co. picked India's Tata Motors Ltd. as the top bidder for its Jaguar and Land Rover units, the Detroit automaker said Thursday.
- Florida cold snap didn't harm orange crops, say growers
- A blast of unusually cold weather doesn't appear to have damaged Florida's multibillion-dollar citrus crop, an industry spokesperson said Thursday.
Blog Watch
Most Blogged about CBC.ca Articles
Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - link will open in new window
