Shares in the 35 suspended firms - which are not traded on stock exchanges - are listed instead on the so-called Pink Sheets electronic quotation service, which does not require brokers to investigate the background of the companies.

BBC: Last Updated: Friday, 9 March 2007, 11:00 GMT

To buy, say, Gazprom ADRs, you must go through a broker, who can obtain them through the Pink Sheets in New York--if they're available.

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Many ADRs are very liquid, others like those that trade over-the-counter on the pink sheets can be illiquid so the bid and asked spread are higher.

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So far 700 outfits on the o-t-c bulletin board and Pink Sheets have been linked to the Vancouver area.

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And Sarbanes Oxley had the unintended consequence of putting a lot of companies under pink sheets so they became non-reporting.

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Hordes of penny-stock hustlers have headed south to the American Stock Exchange, the o-t-c bulletin board and the Pink Sheets since the Vancouver Stock Exchange disappeared in 1999.

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Their second largest holding is a small-cap miner that trades in the pink sheets called Avocet Mining.

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The hope was that the Bulletin Board would improve transparency and prevent rampant fraud among over-the-counter equities then trading only in the Pink Sheets.

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