News Release

Vancouver - A British Columbia Securities Commission panel has rejected a joint submission from the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada, Partners in Planning Financial Service Ltd. and the BCSC executive director to discontinue a hearing about the MFDA’s conduct in connection with a meeting of its members.

Partners in Planning applied for a hearing and review of the MFDA’s decision to amend its by-laws at a special meeting of its members in October 2009. Partners alleged that the MFDA followed a flawed process in doing so.

The BCSC panel decided it was not necessary to determine whether Partners was entitled to a hearing and review because the allegations in its application raised sufficient public interest concerns that the Commission ought to hold a hearing under a section of the Act providing for general reviews of self regulatory organizations like the MFDA.

Partners withdrew its application on April 23, 2010, but the panel said the public interest issues raised by the application remained.

In rejecting the application to discontinue the hearing, the panel said that the joint submissions would not lead an objective observer to conclude that the public interest issues had been properly addressed.

The panel directed the MFDA and the executive director to make further submission and to attend a hearing management conference to set a deadline for filing them.

The B.C. Securities Commission is the independent provincial agency responsible for regulating trading in securities in the province. You can view the decision on our website www.bcsc.bc.ca by typing Partners in Planning or 2010 BCSSECOM 325  into the search box. If you have questions, contact Brenda-Lea Brown, media relations 604-899-6554.

Learn how to avoid investment fraud at the BCSC's investor education website: www.investright.org .