July 2, 2013 Securities

Montréal - On May 21, 2013, Justice of the Peace Sylvie Desmeules, of the Court of Québec for the district of Saint-François, imposed fines totalling $225,000 on René Joubert for his involvement in the Norshield matter. In August 2012, René Joubert was found guilty of 60 of the 62 charges laid against him by the Autorité des marchés financiers (the "AMF") in connection with the illegal distribution of products related to Norshield.

More specifically, the AMF accused René Joubert, a financial planner and the vice-president of the firm Groupe Futur at the time of the allegations, of acting illegally as a securities dealer (25 counts), of aiding Balanced Return Fund and Olympus International Preferred Fund Ltd. with illegal distributions (25 counts) and of making misrepresentations to investors, in particular, that the investment was guaranteed (10 counts).

In her decision, Judge Desmeules took certain aggravating factors into account, such as that René Joubert was registered as an insurance broker at the time of the offences and that the investors concerned lost a total of $1,238,299.

In March 2010, the AMF launched <link file:25467>11 suits associated with the illegal sale of investment vehicles related to Norshield. To date, ten representatives have been found guilty (Michel L'Italien, <link file:37188 file-link-simple>Éric Couture Respondent Éric Couture should not be confused with the mutual fund dealer and insurance of persons representative Éric Couture registered under number NRD 1177191, or with the mutual fund dealer and insurance of persons representative Éric Couture registered under number NRD 1516731, or with the mutual fund dealer representative Éric Couture registered under number NRD 2655441, or with the advising representative of a portfolio manager Éric Couture registered under number NRD 1516951, or with the investment dealer and derivatives dealer representative Éric Couture registered under number NRD 66 531., <link file:37054 file-link-simple>Christophe Balayer, William Marston, René Proteau, Francesco Iacono, Yves Tardif, Marc-André Froment, Claude Tardif Respondent Claude Tardif should not be confused with the dealing representative (investment dealer) and derivatives representative Claude Tardif registered under number NRD 1590761, or with the mutual fund dealer and insurance of persons representative Claude Tardif registered under number NRD 1616271. and René Joubert), and fines totalling $628,500 have been imposed.

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

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