News Release

Released: January 29, 1999 Contact: Michael Bernard
899-6500 or
(BC only) 1-800-373-6393

Vancouver -- A branch manager for First Marathon Securities Ltd. has acknowledged he failed to adequately supervise company employees who profited from trading in shares of Cartaway Resources before the company’s stock price collapsed.

In an Agreed Statement of Facts signed today with the British Columbia Securities Commission, Vancouver branch manager Robert Disbrow also acknowledged that he did not try to prevent trading in the shares and, in fact, participated in it. Disbrow agreed he would obey the Securities Act and abide by new management policies First Marathon has put in place.

Last August, Disbrow was fined $110,000 by the Toronto Stock Exchange and suspended for three months from any job in the capacity of a member of that exchange. He also agreed to a permanent suspension in certain supervisory capacities as an exchange member.

"In our view, the penalties already imposed on him were adequate for the public interest" said Michael Watson, Executive Director of the B.C. Securities Commission. "It was important that he acknowledge that he had breached our regulations and that he agree to abide by them in future."

A group of the investment dealer’s brokers bought control of Cartaway, a shell company on the Alberta Stock Exchange, in late 1994 and 1995. Cartaway shares eventually rose to $26 in May 1996, but dropped to about $2 a share after initially promising visual geological reports did not prove out.

Among the changes First Marathon made to its compliance and supervision programs and procedures were rules requiring that:

· none of its employees will act in the legal role of a promoter for any issuer;
· no employees individually or with others will buy or acquire a corporate shell to obtain access to public market financing;
· employees must notify the company’s vice-president of compliance when their holdings of any public company reach five per cent of issued and outstanding shares;
· the collective holdings of employees of any public company must not exceed 19.9 per cent without the consent of the company’s vice-president of compliance.

The B.C. Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts in the province.