LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Assay results and VSE regulations

In your editorial “Scams and scoundrels” (T.N.M., June 24/96), you classify laboratories into two categories: There are fraudulent labs and there are Canadian labs.

There is a third category of laboratory. These are non-Canadian and do excellent work.

The Vancouver Stock Exchange regulations regarding laboratories are not as you describe them. I think it would clear the air if you were to publish the

regulations.

Steve Cone

President

Cone Geochemical

Editor’s note: The following regulations regarding non-fire assay results and laboratories are excerpted from the “Vancouver Stock Exchange Policy Manual”: Non-fire assay results

n 7.9.1 The veracity of precious metal results obtained by listed companies from foreign laboratories is a significant concern of the Exchange. The concern arises primarily because of the unreliable results produced by relatively unknown laboratories outside Canada incorrectly applying accepted industry techniques, utilizing secret ( “proprietary “) or unverified techniques, or employing unqualified staff.

n 7.9.6 In view of the problems with non-fire assay techniques and non-Canadian laboratories, the Exchange requires that each news release, shareholder report or other public communication that includes precious metal results from an analysis by a non-Canadian laboratory, or from an analysis utilizing any technique other than fire-assay, contain the following information:

a) the analytical method utilized to obtain reported results; b) the name of the laboratory at which the analyses were conducted; and c) the results of any fire-assay check program or the intention to conduct a fire-assay check program at an independent laboratory. All results of a fire-assay check program are to be published in a timely manner.

n 7.9.8 The Exchange may require a listed company to undertake a fire-assay check program at a Canadian laboratory if the reported results are, in the Exchange’s opinion, inconsistent with historic results from the property, the geological environment, or other pertinent factors.