2011 Oscar Press Room

Colin Firth – ‘Best Actor’ For ‘The Kings Speech’ – Press Room

Natalie Portman – ‘Best Actress’ For ‘Black Swan’

Christian Bale – ‘Best Supporting Actor’; ‘The Fighter’

Melissa Leo – ‘Best Supporting Actress’; ‘The Fighter’

CBS News: “Aaron Sorkin: Oscar win like being hit with bat“

CBS Video: “The Social Network” writer Aaron Sorkin on his Oscar

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Here is a clip of Colin Firth at Toronto when The King’s Speech premiere at TIFF 2010 on his birthday, complete with a Happy Birthday to You sang by the audiences!

2011 Oscar telecast – Ebert: “Dead. In. The. Water.” The Hollywood Reporter: one of the worst in history

I had so much hope and good wishes for Oscar hosts James Franco (see this) and Anne Hathaway to do a good/reasonably good job. Instead, I was, like many others, terribly disappointed of the show itself from beginning to end. Don’t get me wrong, the award winners are well deserved of their Academy Awards, my disappointment is with the show itself. Boring and witless. There were only very few moments that I enjoy the show itself (e.g. Kirk Douglas was still very funny at 94 and great to watch).

When a show failed this spectacularly, there are enough blames to spread around, including the producers/directors (the most to blame?), the writers of the show/jokes, and others. What were these people thinking? Were their senses so out of tune with what constitute a good and fun to watch TV show?

The Hollywood Reporter, “83rd Annual Academy Awards: Television Review - Was it a bad idea to have actors host? No, it was spectacularly bad.” (emphasis added),

“In what could go down as one of the worst Oscar telecasts in history, a bad and risky idea — letting two actors host — proved out in spectacularly unwatchable fashion on the biggest of all nights for the film world.

Despite an overall rewarding of brilliant performances and no truly shocking didn’t-see-that-coming upsets, the 83rd Annual Academy Awards will likely be remembered as the night James Franco couldn’t act like a host.

It was not a great night to be on the Internet if you were one of Franco’s trusted advisers, as the likable, quirky actor was torched on Twitter and pimp-slapped across the web for his lifeless performance. He had no business agreeing to host the Oscars, and his resulting pratfall in front of — what, a billion people? — must have made David Letterman gleeful, as his stint will no longer be pointed out as some kind of nadir. Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout.

[...] Few awards shows ever learn that lesson or get the mix right. And to be fair, this Oscar telecast lacked spark from start to finish despite an impressive number of fine films and acting performances — and the hosts can only be blamed for so much. These Oscars were a bore-fest that seemed to drag on relentlessly but listlessly. Perhaps next time more thought will be put into actually making this a good television event. You can trot out all the big-name actors or directors you’d like, but nobody at home paid $11 to watch. The Academy Awards may be about movies, but it’s a TV show. Nobody feels any regret walking out or snapping off the set if you don’t entertain them. A good host is invaluable.

This year, the Oscars hit a new low. Like it fell into a hole.“

Roger Ebert, “Oscars: “King” wins, show loses” (emphasis added),

“Despite the many worthy nominated films, the Oscarcast was painfully dull, slow, witless, and hosted by the ill-matched James Franco and Anne Hathaway. She might have made a delightful foil for another partner, but Franco had a deer-in-the-headlights manner and read his lines robotically.

Incredibly, when former host Billy Crystal came onstage about two hours into the show, he got the first laughs all evening. This was the worst Oscarcast I’ve ever endured. It’s time for the Board of Governors to have a long, sad talk with itself.

At one point I tweeted: “If Bruce Vilanch is within 50 miles of the Kodak Pavilion, they should helicopter his ass backstage and put him to work.” I was quickly put straight. Vilanch, the comedy writer responsible for countless great lines in Oscarcasts past, was a writer on this year’s show. Since Franco and Hathaway lacked a single clever line, there must be an untold story.

[...] Again, I have to say this was the worst Oscarcast I’ve seen, and I go back a while. Some great winners, a nice distribution of awards, but the show? Dead. In. The. Water.“

ABC News via AP, “Oscarcast: Young Co-Hosts, but the Same Old Show“.

The Telegraph, “Oscars 2011: as it happened“

NY Daily News, “Oscars 2011 winners: Kirk Douglas, at age 94, upstages hosts during best supporting actress award“

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Feb 28, 9:42 update: I think New Yorker is being too easy on James. I expect a lot more from James even he is a Yale Ph.D. student. If his heart isn’t into doing a great job, he should take the job. I admire people going out of their comfort zone to try new things, but James didn’t seem to give his all. Here is an excerpt from New Yorker,

“QUESTION FROM EN: What did you think about the hosts?

DAVID DENBY: Ann was sweet, enthusiastic, changed dresses every few minutes; James was odd, as he often is in his performance (though it worked perfectly in 127 Hours)—sly grins, squints, looks off to the side, casual, throwaway delivery. I’m not sure he’s really cut out to be a movie star, or if he even wants it. He’s a Ph.D. student at Yale in the English Department at the moment.”

****

March 6 update:

Hollywood Reporter, “Live Blog of Oscars 2011 Telecast” (very readable)

Winnipeg Free Press, “That’s enough, kids; it’s the adults’ turn again“

HuffPost, “James Franco: Oscar Host Says Ricky Gervais ‘Bombed’ At Golden Globes”

$1 billion of free cash flow a month

Warren Buffett made a point in 2010 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders,

“Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America. Commentators today often talk of “great uncertainty.” But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain.“

Alice Schroeder, biographer of Buffett, wrote this about the letter,

“It goes without saying that historically, capital management has long been the single greatest creator of value at Berkshire. The company has been built from a series of capital transactions and asset/liability matching and capital allocation decisions over many years. Therefore it is not really surprising to see Buffett acknowledge this as the third pillar. Yet one could almost see Buffett salivating as he wrote that Berkshire is now generating $1 billion of free cash flow a month, a threshold it crossed this year. That’s an astounding figure. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company, does not even come close to generating cash flows like this.

Buffett was speaking of free cash flows. In another part of the letter, he wrote about how happy he to be committing enormous amounts of capital to regulated businesses like BNSF and utilities. This is *not* coming out of the $1 billion! Berkshire will either be making acquisitions or buying securities to the tune of $1 billion or more a month for the foreseeable future. By way of comparison, the cash expended for the enormous BNSF acquisition took Berkshire about 16 months to accumulate (at today’s run rate). Imagine Berkshire buying the equivalent of more than two BNSFs every three years.”

More from Alice, “Who Will Create the Third Pillar of Value?“, “How to Run a Bank“, “New Info on NetJets“, “NetJets Europe“

WSJ, interesting excerpts of facts & figures, “Warren Buffett’s 2010 Report: The New Beige Book Guide to the U.S. Economy“

Carol Loomis, Fortune, “Buffett, Simpson and a mountain of Berkshire investments“

Newsweek Oscar Roundtable 2011

My definition of a great evening is one where I am with good friends and we just talk and talk. The wonderful yearly Newsweek Oscar Roundtable gives me great insight to the actors and actresses (Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Annette Bening, Michelle Williams, Nicole Kidman) as people and how they do their “job”.

Part 1 of 7

Part 2, part 3, part 4, you can find the rest easily.

Funny Oscars Hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway

Looks like Oscars Hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway are all set to be funny hosts. They even did a promo to spoof the Oscars. May be after watching Ricky Gervais in Golden Globe, they are trying to be funny in their own ways.

Boot camp.

Outakes.

Anne sings “Evita“

Can you believe?

***

Ricky was trying to have some fun in his blog and wrote “a little opening” for James and Anne.

“Oh, and good luck to James Franco and Anne Hathaway at The Oscars on Sunday. I know how nervous they must be right now.

They will do an absolutely fantastic job and don’t need my help, but I’ve written a little opening in case they have a few minutes to fill.

(Drum roll)

V.O.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Please welcome your hosts for this evening…
James Franco and Anne Hathaway

(Music and applause)
(James and Anne walk out looking absolutely perfect)

JF
Hello and welcome to The 83rd Academy Awards,
Live from Los Angeles.

AH
That’s foreign for City of Angels.
And this room is certainly filled will those angels.

(Applause)

JF
Thank you. I’m James Franco.

AH
…and I’m Anne Hathaway.

JF
You probably know me from 127 Hours where I play a man trapped in an enclosed space who decides he would rather cut his own arm off than stay where he was. Now that sounds “way out” but wait till half way through this fucking ceremony and you’ll start to identify with him.

AH
And I’m the new Catwoman. The first white woman to play that role since Michelle Pfeiffer. I want it to be an inspiration to all white people everywhere. Your dreams can come true in Hollywood too.

JF
It’s a daunting task hosting The Oscars but we’re not alone. Presenting awards tonight will be a string of Hollywood legends and some other actors who have a film out in March or April.

NASA Space Shuttle Discovery Final Mission

Had a lot of fun watching Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-133 launched live at NASA UStream this afternoon.

Go NASA Go !!! Have a safe final Space Shuttle flight. All the best!

P.S. The next and last Space Shuttle flight with Endeavour will be STS-134, the last flight of the Space Shuttle program.

Brett Wilson leaving CBC Dragons’ Den

This morning, I am saddened to read from TorStar and Calgary Herald that Brett Wilson is leaving the CBC hit show Dragons’ Den. Here is an excerpt from TorStar,

“Entrepreneur Brett Wilson is leaving the show Dragons’ Den at the end of the current season.

CBC-TV executive Julie Bristow says Wilson and the broadcaster could not agree on the terms of his contract.“

Brett is a great guy and one of my most favourite Dragon on the show. I love the fact that Brett managed to find ways to close most of his Den’s deals. I like many of the businesses he invests in and secretly wish I could also invest in some of them if I am given the chance! (I won’t name them publicly here. :)

I will add more to this article if I have more to report.

I know I will miss watching Brett on the show. Good luck and all the best Brett.

P.S. On a personal note, in June 2008, Brett was really nice in agreeing to be video interviewed by me and he answered every question I had. It was a great pleasure to know Brett before he appeared on the Den. And I can honestly say Brett has always been the same easy going, friendly and nice guy. Here are links to part 1 and part 2 of the video interviews.

***

Feb 28, 2011, 9:18am Update: Here is a link to my comments plus Brett’s press release, “Brett Wilson’s press release: DRAGON WITH A HEART LEAVES THE DEN“.

Feb 28, 2011, 12:12am Update: From Brett’s tweet, “Will have a #NewsRelease out at 7:00am to comment on my departure from #CBC #DragonsDen. See the wire and my website. It’s all good folks…”

Feb 26, 2011, 1:27pm Update: From Hollywood Reporter, “CBC Loses Popular Reality Show Host – Deal-making shows fails to sign “Dragon’s Den” host to a fourth season.“

Feb 24, 2011, 9:36pm Update: Two tweets from Brett, hope to hear from him directly about this news soon. As others pointed out, Brett was still tweeting about the show as usual only 16 hours ago.

Looks like there have been updates added to both of the originally quoted TorStar and Calgary Herald articles. Here are some important details added to the TorStar article as we can see what Kirstine Stewart (CBC’s head of English services) said last month (Jan 2011?),

“The Star spoke with Kirstine Stewart, CBC’s head of English services, last month and asked about rumours of an oncoming Dragons’ Den shakeup. She denied one was coming but said that in light of situations like Lewin’s health issues, the broadcaster was ready just in case.

“Every year, we do auditions and people get excited and think they might be the next Dragon. The Dragons are huge mogul business people and their schedules don’t always align with our production schedule,” she said.

“There are things that happen in their lives that make them not available to us, so we’re always auditioning to make sure that we have understudies. That’s been the case every year and that continues, but there is no plan to change anything up. But we don’t know if the Dragons are always going to be available to us, so we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got a good roster of people that we can choose from, should their plans change.””

Some stuff in Calgary Herald from CBC spokesman Jeff Keay,

““We were unable to come to terms on his contract,” said CBC spokesman Jeff Keay. “Those things happen, especially on a business show like that. If you can’t reach an agreement on a deal, you don’t have a deal.”

Keay stressed that the contractual road block “wasn’t a matter of money” but he wouldn’t elaborate as to the other issues on the table.

“We consider these discussions with Brett to be confidential,” Keay said. [Kempton note: Huh? Confidentiality agreement to stop Brett from speaking??]

At press time a spokesperson for Wilson told the Herald that he wasn’t prepared to address the matter publicly but plans to at some point soon. [Kempton note: I hope Brett will talk about this from his perspective. His fans and the show's fans deserve more from what CBC has provided.]“

Endangered Languages – Vanishing Voices

About every two weeks, another beautiful and unique language in the world dies when its last speaker pass away.

Check this out. “Language researchers chart vanishing voices – video“

“In a video produced by Cambridge University, anthropologist Mark Turin discusses his work helping speakers of Thangmi, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in eastern Nepal. He aims to document disappearing languages, most of which haven’t been written down before, as part of the World Oral Literature Project“

New Zealand earthquake

My thoughts are with the people of New Zealand in this moment of absolute terror.

- UK Guardian, “Christchurch earthquake: at least 65 dead and 100 trapped in ‘darkest day’ – Crews work through night to free people after 6.3 magnitude quake, New Zealand’s worst natural disaster in 80 years” (with video)

- CBC News, “New Zealand quake kills 65 as dozens trapped” (with video)

- New Zealand Herald, “Christchurch quake: Fears 300 dead“

- The Australian, “New Zealand earthquake kills 65, hundreds still trapped“

***

10:22pm 22 Feb, 2011 Update: Kevin Roberts shares his thought about the earthquake, “Christchurch“

Steve Jobs: Apple succession planning policy

Steve Jobs is a visionary in the computer industry and Apple has continued to be an innovative company under Steve’s leadership. But Steve is seriously ill. And many people have rightfully criticized Apple’s secrecy and CEO succession planning. I think Apple board of directors is irresponsible (even it may be legal) to Apple’s shareholders and stakeholders for it to remind secretive about Steve’s health condition and Apple’s CEO succession plan.

Excerpt from MarketWatch “Apple to face CEO question at annual meeting – Fund wants more transparency on succession plan in Jobs’ absence“,

“Apple has faced similar questions in the past. Jobs skipped the annual meeting two years ago, when he was in the midst of a six-month leave of absence for a then-unspecified health condition. It was later learned that he underwent a liver transplant in that period.

Five years before that, Jobs had surgery to treat pancreatic cancer. He took off a month in mid-2004 to recuperate.

Last month, Jobs told Apple employees that he would be taking another leave of absence “so I can focus on my health” but he withheld specifics of his condition. As in times past, chief operating officer Tim Cook was handed the reins during Jobs’ absence.

Resolution on the ballot

What’s different today is a shareholder group has formally demanded that Apple provide more details about its CEO succession planning.

Madeleine Albright: On being a woman and a diplomat

An insightful TED Talk “Madeleine Albright: On being a woman and a diplomat“. Enjoy.

“Waiting for Superman” and “Race to Nowhere”: Watch them!

I wish I have more time to review/write about “Waiting for Superman” and “Race to Nowhere“, two documentaries about the many problems in US public and private education. While I don’t agree with everything said in both films, I am sure Canadians can learn and apply a few of the lessons in Canada.

I urge you to watch one or both films and make up your own mind.

Waiting for Superman Trailer

Race to Nowhere Trailer

P.S. For the record, I did some preliminary research/reading in Dec 2010 and started capturing some links but just never found the time (and inspiration) to write up something. Anyway, the following are some of the links I collected. Note: I don’t necessary agree with some of the views expressed in them.

- Calgary Waldorf School - Calgary Board of Education board meeting minutes

YouTube 10-year-old sensation Maria Aragon to duet with Lady Gaga

For a young 10-year-old girl, sometime a “simple” tweet can be a life defining/changing event if the tweet was from Lady Gaga. CBC News is reporting that Maria Aragon will duet with Lady Gaga in Toronto on March 3rd. Maria must be so thrilled now. Twitter, YouTube, and social media tools have bring stars and their fans so much closer.

Read more about Maria Aragon in Winnipeg Free Press “Even the Lady herself is gaga over girl’s talent – Local student’s video viral, gets star gushing“ and Winnipeg Sun.

LADY GAGA – Born This Way (Cover)

Maria Aragon performs “Just The Way You Are” on Hot 103

P.S. On a personal note. I still remember only less than two years ago that many reporters don’t have Facebook account and don’t use social media tools. Now, traditional news media often report news initiated from the social media.

***

Feb 22, 2011 Update: TorStar “Singing 10-year-old appears on Ellen“,

“Ten-year-old Canadian singing sensation Maria Aragon has made another stop on her whirlwind tour, this time appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Feb 24, 2011 Update: CBC News “Winnipeg YouTube star on Good Morning America“

IBM’s Watson: Jeopardy! champ. Planet’s health and everything expert consultant ?

It was interesting and exciting to watch Watson compete against two former Jeopardy! champs. To me, a computer geek, it will be even more interesting to read the scientific papers to be published by the IBM team about how exactly Watson did its “magic”. At the moment, not to take away the achievements of the IBM team, the more technical details I read, the less impressed I am with Watson.

Quoting artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky‘s points about Watson,

“Now, the minute the Watson people publish a scientific paper saying how they did it, then we’ll have something to discuss, because maybe some of us will say, “Yes, that is a good new idea, I’m really interested.” Or, as in the case of chess programs, we’ll say, “Now, I see, this is just another worthless, stupid trick that answers the kinds of questions that most people are interested in for no particular reason”—like what date did a certain baseball player make a certain kind of play. That doesn’t require any intelligence to answer if you have the answer in a list.” [Kempton: "Building Watson: An Overview of the DeepQA Project" may be a good start.]

Readings:

* “My Puny Human Brain – Jeopardy! genius Ken Jennings on what it’s like to play against a supercomputer“, Ken Jennings

* “IBM’s Supercomputer Watson Wins It All With $367 Bet“, Bruce Upbin, Forbes

* “IBM Watson’s Jeopardy! Wagering Strategies“, Dr. Gerald Tesauro, IBM Researcher

* “Watson’s wagering strategies” (with video), IBM Research

* “Knowing what it knows: selected nuances of Watson’s strategy” (with video), IBM Research

* “Watson on Jeopardy! Day Three: What We Learned about How Watson Thinks“, IBM

* “Watson on Jeopardy! Day Two: The Confusion over an Airport Clue“, IBM

* “It’s alive: IBM’s Watson supercomputer defeats humans in final Jeopardy match“, VentureBeat

* “IBM’s Watson obliterates humans in first Jeopardy round“, VentureBeat

* “How TV’s Dr. House Could Benefit From Having IBM’s Watson on His Team“, IBM

* “IBM to Collaborate with Nuance to Apply IBM’s “Watson” Analytics Technology to Healthcare – Joint Research Effort to Integrate IBM’s Watson and Nuance’s Voice and Clinical Language Solutions to Provide Enhanced Access to Critical and Timely information“, IBM (Feb 17, 2011 press release)

“A Dr. Watson would not replace a real doctor; it would just assist the physician. He [Dr. Eliot Siegel, a radiologist and director of the Maryland Imaging Research Technologies Lab at the University of Maryland School of Medicine] sees Watson providing some of the help that he now gets from medical students and residents. They give him ideas and backstop him. “Neither we humans nor the system are infallible, but I look forward to being able to work with Watson and to have it learn a lot and get better over time,” says Siegel. “My medical students and residents leave, but Watson would stay with me. All the knowledge will be preserved, and Watson will get smarter and smarter.””

News video,

Feb 18, 1:46 am MST Update:

* “Building Watson: An Overview of the DeepQA Project” (Fall 2010), the Watson team [Quoting MIT Technology Review, "And the IBM team has been pretty open about its methods. Though not every detail was revealed, and the team has asked certain collaborators to sign non-disclosure agreements, I assume that more details will be forthcoming in the scientific literature after the contest."]

* “IBM Researcher Explains What Makes Watson Tick [VIDEO]“, Mashable

I am looking forward to watching this video and Q&A,

World’s first anti-laser

Interesting.

* “The Anti-Laser Is Here“, LA Times

* “Scientists build the world’s first anti-laser“, BBC News

@NHLFlames makes fan in Hong Kong happy

It is cool to see @NHLFlames using Twitter very well to make a Flames fan in Hong Kong (ryantoy) very happy by featuring his tweet! Judging from the following tweet, looks like Ryan really loves hockey,

“Took so long to get setup with a club and gear for hockey in HK, but now ready…and so much hockey in the next 2 days (3 diff practices)!“

Go Flames Go !!!

P.S. Go @NHLFlames Go !!! Keep up the good work with Twitter.

Liam Neeson opens up about losing wife Natasha Richardson

Just finished the moving Esquire article “The Hard Luck and Beautiful Life of Liam Neeson” where Liam Neeson opens up about losing wife Natasha Richardson since her death in March 2009. [HT CH EW]

More from WaPo and CBC.

Real Travel: The Lies We Tell

Congrats to my friend Daisann McLane for winning the North American Travel Journalists award for best byline travel column. Second year in a row!

Here is a link to her National Geographic Traveler article, “Real Travel: The Lies We Tell.” Enjoy.

Orgasm Inc. in theaters in New York, Chicago, Ottawa, and more

I am happy to report the internationally widely acclaimed documentary Orgasm Inc by director Liz Canner is opening in theaters in New York City, Chicago and other US cities, and Ottawa in Canada.

Have a look of my video interview with Liz and what I’ve learned from the doc. Also check out TIME magazine “Warning: Orgasm, Inc. Will Leave You Hot and Bothered“.

Cities and screening dates listed on Orgasm Inc. website (retrieved on Feb 16, 2011):

New York City, NY • QUAD CINEMA • February 11th – Feb 24th, 2011
Chicago, IL • Gene Siskel Film Center • Opens February 11, 2011
Ottawa, ON • Mayfair Theatre • February 18, 19 & 22, 2011
Coral Gables, FL • Coral Gables Art Cinema • February 18 – 24, 2011

Charlotte, NC • McColl Center for Visual Art • March 2, 2011
Brookline, MA • Coolidge Corner Theatre • Opens March 24* – 31, 2011
* Run begins 3/25, with a “special evening” with the filmmaker on 3/24

Los Angeles, CA • Laemmle’s Sunset 5 • Opens April 1, 2011
San Francisco, CA • Roxie Theater • April 1 – 7, 2011
Albuquerque, NM • Guild Cinema • April 17 – 19, 2011
Ellsworth, ME • The Grand Auditorium • April 25, 2011

The Buzz listed on Orgasm Inc. website (retrieved on Feb 16, 2011):

“I loved Orgasm Inc. It’s a great combination of educational, entertaining and angering — perfect.”
-Gloria Steinem

“An extraordinary and revelatory documentary about female desire and the pharmaceutical industry.”
-The Times (UK)

Concrete Equities, $118 million, 3700 investors and many broken dreams

Before Concrete Equities went into receivership in spring 2009, it used to be a major advertiser/sponsor of CBC Dragons’ Den and many people got to know about the company through those ads. Sadly, “More than 3,700 investors, most of whom are from Calgary, lost more than $100 million through investments with Concrete Equities.” It is sad that many people had to learn the lesson in such a hard way.

For the record.

From CBC News “Alleged Alta. securities breaches under review” (Monday Feb 14, 2011) (emphasis added),

“A hearing into a Calgary real estate investment firm’s alleged breaches of Alberta securities law got underway Monday.

Four former directors of Concrete Equities, which went into receivership in 2009, are accused of acting as dealers without being registered, not filing prospectus and making misrepresentations to investors. [...]

More than 3,700 investors, most of whom are from Calgary, lost more than $100 million through investments with Concrete Equities.“

From Calgary Herald “Concrete Equities under scrutiny at hearing – ASC to determine if now-defunct Calgary company misled investors” (Feb 15, 2011) (emphasis added),

“Monday, lawyers for the ASC outlined the case they hope to prove, which includes investors who were promised returns of more than 600 per cent and told the investments were risk free, as well as those who weren’t told of marketing commissions of between seven and 10 per cent being paid to Concrete Equities.

“You will hear evidence in the course of this hearing that Concrete Equities Inc., in raising capital in Alberta, failed to disclose certain information to its investors in its offering memoranda, which the investors will say was information that they would wanted to have known when they made their investment,” ASC counsel Andrew Wilson told the panel of three hearing the case. [...]

The ASC allegations involve David Jones, David Humeniuk, Varun Vinny Aurora and Vincenzo De Palma and six limited partnerships.

Neil Narfason, a senior vice-president at receiver Ernst & Young, told the hearing Concrete Equities – which raised $118 million from 3,700 investors – couldn’t list all its bank accounts and had accounting and bookkeeping standards that were below expectations.

“All the basic stuff was not there,” Narfason said, referring to ledgers, financial statements, tax returns and bank statements that were missing or incomplete. “It’s unusual for a company in that business not to have a handle on funds.”