CSA releases consultation paper on venture issuer regulation
On May 31, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released Multilateral Consultation Paper 51-403 Tailoring Venture Issuer Regulation, a product of the securities regulatory authorities of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. While Ontario and Quebec are not fully participating in this consultation, they are encouraging their market participants to review and comment on the proposals.
The Consultation Paper is intended to "assess market interest in pursuing a more tailored approach to the regulation of the venture market" and seeks the views of stakeholders, exchanges, dealers and industry associations. Specifically, the Consultation Paper proposes consolidating and streamlining governance and continuous disclosure requirements in a new regulatory instrument that would apply only to venture issuers, replacing the relevant requirements currently found in various instruments.
The proposed new instrument would, among other things, replace the current requirement for separate annual financial statements and MD&A with an annual report, eliminate three and nine month interim financial statements and associated MD&A, introduce substantive corporate governance requirements, eliminate business acquisition reports and enhance material change reporting and permit prospectuses to contain only two years of historical financial statements.
The participating securities regulatory authorities are accepting written comments on the proposals until September 17, 2010. Additionally, consultation sessions will be held across Canada in order to gather further feedback.
