The Quebec financial services regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers, reports that a man has been sent to prison for 10 days for violating the regulator’s order.

Judge Jean-Guy Dubois of the Superior Court of Québec, district of Richelieu, allowed the request filed by the AMF and sent Michel Maheux to prison for 10 days, the AMF says.Maheux and the Coopérative de producteurs de bois précieux Québec Forestales were also fined $4,500 and $250, respectively.

AMF president and CEO, Jean St-Gelais noted that the sentence, a first in the province, reflects the AMF’s determination to enforce financial regulations in Québec more strictly.

On Oct. 15, 2003, the AMF’s predecessor, the Commission des valeurs mobilières du Québec, the AMF’s predecessor, ordered Québec Forestales not to distribute investment contracts or any other form of investment, and it denied exemptions enabling a cooperative to distribute preferred shares, subject to certain conditions.

The AMF says that in light of the respondents’ refusal to comply with the order, it obtained an interlocutory injunction on August 13, 2004 to ensure compliance with the October 15 decision and shut down the Web site of Québec Forestales.

On Nov. 26, 2004, Judge Dubois declared Maheux and Québec Forestales to be in contempt of court. In his ruling, the judge stated that the respondents “[translation] violated the order… in a voluntary and deliberate manner and without any valid excuse, by failing to shut down the site as stipulated in the order.”