October 3, 2008 Decisions and Freeze and cease trade orders Securities

Montréal – At the request of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the Bureau de décision et de révision en valeurs mobilières (BDRVM) today issued a further temporary order prohibiting short selling of securities of certain financial sector issuers that are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and are also interlisted in the United States (with the exception of one issuer whose shares are exchangeable).

The order prohibits any person, until October 8, 2008 inclusively, from short selling the common shares of the following issuers: Bank of Montréal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM), Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (FFH), Kingsway Financial Services Inc. (KFS), Manulife Financial Corporation (MFC), Quest Capital Corp. (QC), Royal Bank of Canada (RY), Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF), Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. (TWP), Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) and Merrill Lynch & Co., Ltd. (MLC).

The AMF believes the order is in the public interest and will help protect investors and ensure the continued smooth operation of the financial markets. This latest order supports the decision issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 2, 2008. It clarifies certain exceptions set out in the order issued by the BDRVM on September 23, 2008 and removes one entity from the list of targeted issuers, namely, Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Investment Company Ltd. (FAP), because it is not interlisted.

The original order was issued on September 19, 2008 and was superseded on September 23 by a new order by the BDRVM.

These orders were issued as precautionary measures amid the restrictions imposed by the SEC, the U.K. Financial Services Authority and various securities regulators in Canada. The order was delivered from the bench by the BDRVM based on the conclusions of a request made by the AMF. The request to the BDRVM is posted on the AMF website, under "News."

The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) is the regulatory and oversight body for Québec's financial sector.

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