The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) has published a set of proposed amendments on Thursday, which would introduce a new harmonized report for exempt market filings.
The purpose of harmonizing reporting is to reduce the compliance burden for issuers and underwriters by replacing the current system with a single report that could be used throughout the country, the CSA says. Currently, there are two different reports that apply across CSA jurisdictions.
The new report would also provide the regulators with the necessary data to facilitate more effective regulatory oversight of the exempt market, the CSA adds.
Among other things, the proposed new report would require disclosure about the issuer; the identities of the directors, executive officers, control persons and promoters of certain issuers; details about the securities being distributed; details about the exemptions being relied on; and information on the compensation being paid to registrants, insiders and others involved in the distribution.
The CSA has previously proposed changes to exempt market reporting. The comments received on those proposals have informed this latest proposal, the CSA says. Notably, the CSA has streamlined the proposed report so that it would not to require issuers to include certain information that can be gathered through their continuous disclosure filings, SEDAR, or from a registered firm’s National Registration Database (NRD) profile.
“The proposed report is intended to reduce the compliance burden for issuers and underwriters by having a single, harmonized report across the jurisdictions. It will also improve our regulatory oversight of the exempt market by providing the CSA with better data regarding the issuers and intermediaries participating in that market,” says Louis Morisset, chairman of the CSA and president and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), in a statement,
The CSA is publishing the current proposed amendments for a 60-day comment period that will end on Oct. 13.