The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada granted a total of 66 exemptions from its rules last year, most of them from provisions of the trading rules.
According to an IIROC notice released Monday, during 2011 IIROC market regulation staff allowed 62 exemptions from the trading rules; and, its staff granted one exemption, and the board permitted another three exemptions, from the dealer rules.
Of the trading rule exemptions, 60 of them were in response to a request for permission to act as principal or agent in an off-marketplace trade.
In terms of the dealer rules, the IIROC board granted an exemption allowing an order-execution only business unit and a full-service business unit to share a call centre, based on the measures that would be in place to ensure that there was no client confusion between the two business units. It also determined that cross-guarantees (which require dealers to guarantee the obligations to clients incurred by related companies) were not necessary in two cases involving alternative trading systems that did not have client accounts, subject to certain conditions.
And, IIROC staff granted an exemption allowing a bulk transfer of client accounts in connection with an acquisition, without complying in advance with certain client documentation requirements.
The self-regulatory organization is able to grant exemptions from the trading rules for particular transactions, provided that the exemption doesn’t violate securities law or regulations, and doesn’t violate the public interest or disrupt orderly markets. Similarly, exemptions from the dealer rules are available in circumstances that are not prejudicial to the interests of other dealers, their clients or the public.
The notice does not report exemptions that were granted from proficiency or other registration requirements although IIROC says its staff is evaluating how they might report summary information relating to registration and proficiency exemptions in the future.