News Release

Vancouver – A company director who defrauded an 86-year-old woman of $30,000 was banned from B.C. securities markets for 25 years by the BC Securities Commission.

Gordon Howard Callies also was ordered to pay a $125,000 administrative penalty for his role in an illegal distribution of securities while selling shares of Cambria Bancorp Ltd., a company in which he was a director.

“He enriched himself through the perpetration of a fraud. Callies poses a risk to investors and markets in British Columbia. It is also important that we make orders which will service to deter others from similar conduct.”

Callies entered into an agreed statement of facts with the Executive Director the day of the hearing, admitting that he distributed to 14 investors securities of Cambria Bancorp Ltd., including 260,000 Cambria shares and a $50,000 investment certificate without being registered to trade in securities and without a prospectus, both contrary to the Securities Act.

He admitted he also converted $30,000 of the 86-year-old woman’s funds to his own use, contrary to her instructions. As a Cambria director, he agreed he failed to ensure Cambria complied with the law, by not exercising the care, diligence and skill of a reasonably prudent person, which violates the province’s Company Act.

Callies was also ordered to resign any position he holds as a director or officer of any company issuing securities, except those owned solely by himself or his family. He was also prohibited from acting as a director or officer of any issuer, or engaging in investor relations activities for 25 years.

In a related matter, the panel also imposed a cease-trade order against a company called 601949.

The panel decided not to make orders against another man commission staff had cited in the matter. Staff had asked that James Lee MacDonald be found to have acted contrary to the public interest when he introduced investors to the numbered company’s president Walter Leo Barnscher. But the panel found that MacDonald, who has no record of previous misconduct, had a limited role in the illegal distribution of shares. The panel also found that there was no evidence that investors were harmed by his conduct or that he was enriched through the introduction.

“In light of this, it is difficult to conclude that MacDonald’s conduct has done appreciable damage to the capital markets of British Columbia or that MacDonald constitutes a threat to those markets.”

The B.C. Securities Commission is an independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities within the province. The decision can be accessed through the commission’s website www.bcsc.bc.ca or by contacting Media Relations Officer Andrew Poon at 604-899-6880.