The Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission announced that several legislative changes, including the introduction of civil liability for secondary market disclosure, will come into force February 15.

A new section to its legislation contains provisions that make reporting issuers civilly liable to investors and the secondary market for misrepresentations in their public disclosure, subject to reasonable limitations.

These provisions are uniform with Ontario’s regime, which came into force on January 1, 2006, with two exceptions. In Saskatchewan the normal provisions respecting costs in civil actions will apply, and there is no section dealing with limitation periods.

Assorted other changes will also take effect on Feb. 15, including those implementing the new national rule dealing with take-over bids and issuer bids.