The Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) has dismissed allegations against a couple of corporate insiders who were accused of insider trading.
The commission determined that ASC staff’s allegations against two employees of Berens Energy Ltd. (Donald Keith and Michael Brian McCue ) and relatives of the two men (Mary Lee Keith and Arthur Allan McCue) were not proven.
ASC staff alleged that Brian McCue had improperly sold Berens shares; that he and Donald Keith had illegally tipped their brother, and wife, respectively; and that Mary Keith and Allan McCue illegally bought Berens shares. Staff also alleged that the Keiths and Brian McCue made misleading or untrue statements to investigators.
A hearing in the case was held in May and June of this year. And, the commission has now ruled that the allegations were not proven.
“Aspects of the impugned trading activity – timing, notably – were, at first sight, distinctly troubling,” the commission panel notes in its decision. “That said, having heard and carefully considered and weighed all of the evidence, we consider it more probable than not that the impugned trading activity was not, after all, illegal or contrary to the public interest. We are also unpersuaded as to the allegations about misleading or untrue statements to staff investigators.”
As a result, it dismissed all of the allegations.