Montreal: Despite expressed reservations on the part of its auditor Ernst & Young, Cinar says it hopes to report its 1999 financial results by June 30, the deadline set by the Quebec Securities Commission. qsc has also ordered Cinar to update investors every two weeks.

Cinar reports ongoing negotiations with Globe-X Management for the settlement of an unauthorized investment of us$122 million, us$46 million of which has been returned. In a news release issued last week, the company says, ‘There is no assurance as to when, if at all, a negotiated settlement may be arrived at,’ but an additional us$10 million was due to be paid back last week.

Perhaps a first in the production industry in Canada, Cinar has announced it will hire a new cfo since current cfo Jeff Gerstein will focus full time on tax issues in his new postition as vp, taxation. PricewaterhouseCoopers, retained in March, continues to provide financial advice and will assist in additional management duties until a new cfo is hired.

On the business front, Cinar staffers are keeping busy attending festivals and markets around the world, including the Annecy International Film Festival & Market in France (June 5-11), the annual pbs meeting in Nashville (June 9-11), the big Licensing 2000 International show in New York (June 13-15) and the Banff Television Festival (June 11-16).

President and ceo Barrie Usher, Cinar Entertainment president Peter Moss and vp communications Suzan Ayscough will be present in Banff.

On the legal front, new claims related to stockholder issues have been filed against Cinar by Louis Fournier, Cinar’s former distribution and sales vp, and by the former owners of High Reach Learning, a Cinar Education company based in the u.s.

Trading in Cinar shares on the tse and nasdaq has been halted since March 8.

An rcmp investigation of alleged tax fraud continues.