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In an update Thursday morning, the status of the post was upgraded to “Now confirmed.” Both Johnson and TD acknowledged that an incident occurred, but would not elaborate.

It’s understood the unpleasant situation happened at Modus Restaurant, which defines itself as “the plush new restaurant located in Toronto’s Financial District for upscale Italian dining.” The reception and dinner, on which TD was picking up the tab, was the final event on the first’s day program.

It also seems the incident occurred 10 pm. One attendee estimated it happened in front of 35-40 people.

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People who were there claim that Johnson was acting in a manner that Earle thought was not appropriate. In essence, Earle — who according to Bloomberg research, doesn’t cover the company (that’s done by his colleague Steven Green) — told Johnson that he should settle down a bit.

You expect that behavior from a bunch of 19-year olds not the CEO of a public company

That message was something that Johnson allegedly wasn’t keen on hearing. As one witness claimed: “Dan said something to Clive who retaliated with a choke hold on Dan. The crowd broke up the initial altercation. Clive went back at him, threw a couple of punches which didn’t connect. Dan took a couple of shots, which very much connected to Clive’s right eye. His glasses were broken and Clive was bleeding.”

This witness added that after those two punches, the fight was broken up. The witness further claimed: “About 10-15 minutes later, Dan went to leave, Clive went after him but was restrained by staff at the restaurant. You expect that behavior from a bunch of 19-year olds not the CEO of a public company.”

Another witness alleged: “Clive sucker punched Dan twice in the face, Dan retaliated after the second one.”

What do the various parties say?

Reached by email, B2Gold’s Clive Johnson said, “there was a misunderstanding which was resolved. It was not business related.”

And TD said it was “aware of the incident. This is an internal matter and we are taking appropriate steps to address it.”