Charges Filed in Bre-X Mining Debacle

John Felderhof, a key figure in the 1997 collapse of Canadian mining company Bre-X Minerals Ltd., was charged by securities regulators with trading stock based on confidential information and misleading the public. Felderhof was vice chairman and exploration head at Bre-X. The company’s market capitalization soared to $4.13 billion before it acknowledged that gold was added to samples from its Busang site in Indonesia, which Bre-X boasted was the world’s biggest deposit. The Bre-X debacle, one of the biggest frauds in mining history, prompted the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Ontario Securities Commission to form a task force in 1997 aimed at restoring investor confidence in the Canadian mining industry. Four counts against Felderhof relate to insider trading, the OSC said. The other four allege that Felderhof authorized the release of misleading news releases between June 20, 1996, and Feb. 17, 1997, about the company’s gold resource calculations at Busang. Felderhof, who lives in the Cayman Islands, did not respond to phone calls made to his home. If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison, an OSC spokesman said.