TORONTO, Sept. 21 /CNW/ - CIBC's 2008 Annual Accountability Report earned two international annual report awards at the 23rd annual International ARC Awards held in New York last week. CIBC received a Gold award for the presentation of our Financial Data and an Honors award for our Chairman's Letter in the Banks International Public category.

The ARC Awards sponsored by MerComm, Inc. is an international Annual Reports Competition which honors excellence in annual reports and is considered the "Academy Awards" for the industry. In previous ARC competitions, CIBC's 2007 AAR was recognized with a Bronze Award for the presentation of financial data and the 2006 AAR earned two Gold awards, one for the overall annual report and another for the Chairman's letter.

This year's awards recognize CIBC for the depth of financial data presented, for clarity in writing, ease of understanding and how successfully the data was integrated into the overall annual report.