News Release

Vancouver – The B.C. Securities Commission has ordered a one-time Abbotsford doctor to pay $35,000 and banned him from the capital markets for 15 years for perpetrating a fraud on an investor of a proposed Coquitlam hospital.

James Swanney, a medical doctor who once practiced in Abbotsford, was a director of Specialized Surgical Services Inc., a company that the BCSC had found made misrepresentations in soliciting more than $1.3-million from B.C. investors for a proposed private, surgical hospital in suburban Coquitlam.

The commission, in a decision released in July 2002, found that two of Specialized Surgical’s directors – Swanney and David Steinart – breached their duties as directors by permitting the company to make misrepresentations in two offering memorandums.

The panel found that Swanney perpetrated a fraud on Rosalind Collins, one of the investors in the company: He was a key participant in the transactions that caused Collins to pay $50,000 for shares that were worth only $7,500 at the time.

Swanney “perpetrated a fraud, one of the most serious contraventions of the [Securities] Act. Swanney harmed investors, Collins in particular, and seriously impaired the integrity of our capital markets and the public interest,” said the panel.

Swanney must not act as a director or officer of any company for at least 15 years and has been ordered to pay the costs related to the hearing.

For his part, Steinart has been banned from the markets for three years.

A cease-trade order has been issued against Specialized Surgical and no individual may buy or sell securities of the company until it has filed and obtained a receipt for a prospectus.

The B.C. Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts within the province. Copies of the decision can be viewed in the documents database of the commission’s website www.bcsc.bc.ca or contact Andrew Poon, Media Relations.