Well lookie here! Did Dr. Page Edgar marry two Robert Talbots? Plenty of legal documents establish nwgc ceo robert talbot to page edgar connection. Fun read revealing nwgc ceo talbot received canada cease trade order for 9 months..even more hilarious is how nwgc ceo stiffed his travel agent for ecuador family flights for $19k and then bounced the check when court ordered to repay! Lol...oh, and by the way, that pesky other no bid ticker keeps haunting nwgc ceo..named Medical Services International..indisputable connection proof! Lol...watch and learn junior..no charge for daily nwgc lesson! Good luck!
Medical Services on life support, OSC pulls the plug
MEDICAL SERVICES INTL INC MSITF
VITAL SIGNS
by Lee M. Webb
Medical Services International Inc., an Edmonton-based sub-penny stock promotion headed by securities violator Robert Talbot, has been languishing at a few hundredths of a penny on the Pink Sheets in the U.S. and has not been responding to Mr. Talbot's massive promotional therapy. Among its many ailments, Medical Services faces an Alberta lawsuit from Westmount TravelAssociates Ltd. over more than $19,000 worth of airline tickets. Adding to its woes, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) issued a cease trader order against Medical Services on Nov. 22.
Since Stockwatch last reported on Medical Services on Dec. 18, 2001, the company has issued approximately 40 promotional news releases in an attempt to revive the flagging stock. Notwithstanding that massive promotional therapy, recently being administered at the rate of one fluffy news release per day, the share price has not responded. While more than one billion shares of Medical Services have changed hands in the past seven months, the stock price has plunged below one U.S. cent and shares are now being swapped for a few hundredths of a penny.
At the centre of Mr. Talbot's promotional scheme is the company's much-hyped HIV test kit, backstopped by a sundry array of other rapid test kits, and with disappearing claims to major stakes in purported call centres tossed in for good measure. Medical Services has been touting its HIV test kits for years, in spite of the fact that the company sold its test kit subsidiary to another dubious venture in a share transaction more than two years ago. Within months of the reported sale, however, Medical Services was back to touting the HIV kits; and was soon announcing orders, forecasting production quotas, and projecting revenues.
In the early stages of the renewed HIV test kit promotional campaign Medical Services still touted its production facility, purportedly located in Anguilla where the company grandiloquently claims to have a "medical facility." The so-called medical facility is a dilapidated resort that is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in Anguilla.
Late last year, Mr. Talbot began shifting the promotional centre of his HIV test kit touting to South Africa, claiming that the company had entered into a joint venture that included the opening of a production centre in Cape Town. Mr. Talbot claimed that the project had been endorsed by an agency of the Western Cape provincial government, which gave the venture its full support. In fact, as revealed by Stockwatch, the provincial government did not offer any endorsement at all.
By January of this year, Medical Services announced that a new player had become involved in the South African joint venture. According to Mr. Talbot, Mushroom Biomedical Systems AG, based in Zurich, Switzerland, had acquired a 50-per-cent stake in the Cape Town caper. The promotional news release proclaimed that the joint venture, which could produce as many as eight million HIV test kits per year, would result in the creation of 400 new jobs in Cape Town.
Meanwhile, Medical Services branched out in a new promotional direction, reportedly acquiring a 45-per-cent stake in a "global telecom firm," Teltek International Ltd. "Teltek is contracted by major US multi-national corporations to provide call center out-sourcing solutions and out-bound telemarketing services in the financial services telecommunications and direct response home shopping industries," Mr. Talbot reported on Dec. 18, 2001.
According to the embroidered announcement, Teltek was supposed to generate $4.6-million (U.S.) in revenue and tally an estimated profit of $1.2-million (U.S.). On Jan. 10 of this year, Medical Services announced that Teltek would be increasing the number of call centre seats by 270, bringing the total to 400 seats by February. Of course, the additional seats required an adjustment to the revenue projections, which were boosted to $9.6-million (U.S.). Oddly, Medical Services has not reported any revenue from the venture and, even more strangely, no telephone number can be found for the obscure global telecom firm.
Evidently Mr. Talbot found the call centre business, or at least its promotional value, of some interest. On July 19 he announced that Medical Services had acquired a 25-per-cent stake in another call centre operation. According to the news release, the unidentified call centre firm based somewhere in the Caribbean would generate approximately $1.5-million (U.S.) in revenue and notch a profit of $410,000 (U.S.) in the first year of operation. There has been no mention of either call centre in recent Medical Services news releases and no evidence of any revenue from them.
Mr. Talbot's diversion into call centre operations did not slow the steady stream of promotional news releases regarding the HIV test kits. In fact, the company has issued a torrent of news releases touting developments involving the test kits from virtually all parts of the globe.
"Medical Services International Inc. (Pink Sheets:MSITF) is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with a healthcare corporation based in the United States to supply them with a minimum of 500,000 VScan(TM) HIV rapid test kits to be used in various locations throughout the world," the company announced on April 2, neglecting to mention that the kits are not approved for sale in Canada or the U.S or any other developed country.
In a new twist, Medical Services began announcing the signing of HIV test kit distribution agreements for various regions of the world. An outfit named International Product Services LLC based in Connecticut reportedly picked up the distributorship for Europe, according to a May 30 news release.
On June 11, the company announced that Tagalder Asia, a dubious operation linked to Canada, had secured the distribution rights for Southeast Asia. That deal would lead to an absolute whopper of an announcement. On Aug. 19, Medical Services reported that Tagalder had signed an agreement to distribute the company's HIV test kits in China. According to the news release, "Tagalder will be able to distribute VScan(TM) Test Kits valued in excess of US $44 million in the first year and a total of US $180 million over three years."
The Middle East was on the block, too, with Consolidated Mercantile Consulting Group picking up the distribution rights for, of all places, Iraq. Perhaps the recent sabre-rattling over Iraq will put a kink in that development.
In October, Medical Services announced that it had signed a master distributorship agreement for the Baltics with an outfit called Minerva Baltika. The Minerva agreement was subsequently amended to include Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. According to all the news releases, evidently issued with no regard for the results of past promotional claims, it is reasonable to expect that many millions of HIV test kits will be sold.
The flood of news releases and promotional claims continued as the share price struggled to break above a few hundredths of a cent. Among other things, Medical Services trotted out a timely tale about the development of a rapid test kit for the West Nile virus and reported a sale of menopause test kits to an unidentified "pharmaceutical group" in Mexico.
While the Edmonton-based medical innovator and engine of economic growth in underdeveloped countries was busy touting all these wonderful developments, Mr. Talbot apparently struck upon an air miles scheme to help out with the travel costs. The scheme reportedly enabled him, as well as members of his family, promoters, and others associated with the company, to fly about at no cost; or at least at no cost to Medical Services or Mr. Talbot's other companies.
According to a lawsuit filed in the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta on Oct. 17, Mr. Talbot has not paid for approximately $19,000 worth of airline tickets issued by his travel agent, Westmount Travel Associates Ltd. According to the allegations in the lawsuit filed by Dale Stengel of Westmount, Mr. Talbot and his wife, Dr. Page Edgar, Kate Talbot, their daughter, Manfred Wiedemeyer, a director of Medical Services, Bradly King, Anthanastos Terzakis, Satee Bachan, Andre Albarus, Cheyon Blackwood, and someone representing MacPherson Stetson, Medical Services auditor, all flew for free. Mr. Stengel named all of the alleged free flyers as defendants in the lawsuit.
According to the allegations in the statement of claim, Westmount advised Mr. Talbot last November that it would not provide any further services until he paid his account. Mr. Stengel alleges that Mr. Talbot subsequently provided Westmount with three postdated cheques drawn on the account of another one his companies, Anglo-Canadian Investments Ltd. According to Mr. Stengel, the cheques bounced.
"The Plaintiff says that the Defendant Robert Talbot knew or ought to have known that there were no funds available to honour the cheques and the Defendant Robert Talbot tendered the cheques knowingly to obtain further goods and services without payment," Westmount alleges.
"The Plaintiff says that actions of the Defendant Robert Talbot were intentional and fraudulent and the Plaintiff claims damages against the Defendant Robert Talbot for fraud in the amount of $19,288.89 or in such other amount as this Honourable Court may deem meet," the lawsuit states.
Naming MacPherson Stetson in the lawsuit and then serving Medical Services' auditor before serving Mr. Talbot evidently turned out to be a sharp strategic move. In spite of the fact that he had not yet been served, Mr. Talbot quickly learned of the lawsuit, quite possibly from his auditors.
Mr. Talbot is no ingenue when it comes to lawsuits; nonetheless, the fact that Medical Services' auditor, MacPherson Stetson, had been named in the suit apparently put him in a tizzy. On Oct. 24, he penned a blustery letter to Westmount on the letterhead of yet another of his companies, Medquest Inc., also named in the lawsuit.
"I have been handed a copy of your latest filings," Mr. Talbot wrote to Westmount's Mr. Stengel. "I thought after the previous false filings you would attempt to get things straight.
"I note that you have named MacPherson Stetson in the lawsuit. You know very well that MacPherson Stetson are our auditors and have never dealt with you in any capacity whatsoever. This is in fact fraud and an attempt at extortion.
"I have handed this information to our legal counsel who will be taking you to court to deal with your bogus statement of claim. Further, they have been instructed to ask the courts for costs against your company and you personally.
"Its (sic) fraud to try to collect from an entity that you (have) not supplied a service.
"Further, our legal counsel has been instructed to pay the amount of the claim against MacPherson Stetson into the courts who will hold it until this matter goes to trial.
"Govern yourself accordingly."
According to Mr. Stengel, MacPherson Stetson, and specifically Don Stetson, did make use of a $1,260.41 airline ticket ordered by Mr. Talbot and issued by Westmount. While the blustering Mr. Talbot did not pay the amount of the claim against Medical Services' auditors into court as he claimed he would do, MacPherson Stetson subsequently agreed to pay for the ticket on the condition that the firm be released from the lawsuit. Not surprisingly, Mr. Stengel agreed, collecting at least some of the money allegedly owed to Westmount.
On Nov. 21, Mr. Stengel personally served Mr. Talbot with the lawsuit. According to the travel agent, it was not a very pleasant experience. "He physically tried to throw me out of his office," Mr. Stengel told Stockwatch. "I mean physically. He was just rip-roaring."
According to Mr. Stengel, while pushing him out of the office the agitated Mr. Talbot used language that the travel agent would not even repeat. Mr. Stengel says that he was actually considering bringing a complaint against Mr. Talbot for assault because of the rough treatment.
Meanwhile, Medical Services' audited financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2002, which were due by Nov. 18, have not yet been filed. The reason for MacPherson Stetson's tardiness in completing the audit is not clear. In any event, the OSC, which opened an investigation into Medical Services three years ago, finally used the occasion of the late filing to issue a cease trade order against the company.
"The Ontario Securities Commission issued a temporary cease trading order against the company on Nov. 22, 2002, for failure to make statutory filings," the OSC advised. "The hearing will take place on Dec. 4, 2002."
Mr. Talbot fired back with two news releases of his own on Nov. 22, the first one announcing that Medical Services has "been granted a worldwide license by the United States Public Health Service for use of its reagents in a Rapid Diagnostic Test Kit for the West Nile Virus." According to Mr. Talbot, the company is working on a test kit to detect the virus in animals. "The Company believes that there will be a significant demand for a Test Kit for animals as research is beginning to show that the West Nile Virus can be transmitted to animals other than birds," the promoter claims.
In a second news release on Nov. 22, Mr. Talbot acknowledged the OSC cease trade order against Medical Services for failing to make statutory filings and then pretty much thumbed his nose at the regulator.
"The Company is required to file audited financial statements in Ontario," Mr. Talbot reported. "These statements were to be filed by November 18, 2002. The Company was contacted by the OSC and we indicated that we would be approximately 10 days late in filing. The OSC issued the mandatory 15 day temporary cease trade order. When the audited financial statements are filed in the next few days, on December 5, 2002 the temporary cease trade order is automatically lifted. The cease trade order only applies to Ontario."
In other words, apart from the now tarnished veneer of credibility once lent to Medical Services as a reporting issuer in good standing with the OSC, it is business as usual on the Pink Sheets. In relatively modest trading, the company's vital signs remain weak; with approximately 3.6 million shares changing hands Medical Services closed at five-100ths of a U.S. cent on Nov. 22.
