Author: Christopher L. Doerksen
Chris helps clients raise money by selling equity and debt, buy and sell assets and businesses, manage their SEC disclosures, implement corporate governance structures, list on stock exchanges, and establish equity-based compensation arrangements. He currently serves as the head of Seattle’s Corporate department and co-chair of the Canada Cross-Border Practice Group.
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Many of our Canadian clients have decided to list their stock in the United States on the NYSE American exchange, instead of Nasdaq. Why? Stock price flexibility is a big factor. In Canada, it’s considered perfectly normal for a company to have stock with a price of $2, $1, $0.50 or even $0.10 per share....
The SEC has proposed revisions to the definition of an “accelerated filer” that would exempt most companies that have both a public float of common equity of less than $700 million and annual revenues of less than $100 million from the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX 404). If adopted, these revisions...
You are invited to join us on February 26, 2019, at 11 am PT/2 pm ET, for a webinar discussing the SEC’s new mining disclosure rules. On October 31, 2018, the SEC adopted final rules effecting a complete overhaul of the technical disclosure requirements applicable to companies engaged in material mining operations, including royalties. Upon...
We have written about this in the past [here], but the message bears repeating each year. It is easy to overlook that employment agreements, change-in-control agreements, and severance agreements with U.S. taxpayers frequently contain provisions that subject them to U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 409A (“Section 409A”), and failure to comply can result in onerous tax...
With the legalization of marijuana going into effect in Canada tomorrow, October 17, we encourage our Canadian contacts to be careful when crossing the U.S. Border. For more information, see the recent article authored by Dorsey’s Immigration Practice Group posted on our Cannabis Blog here: dorseycann.com/at-the-intersection-of-cannabis-and-u-s-immigration-law-issues-that-canadians-and-other-non-citizens-should-be-aware-of/.
The SEC’s settlement with Tesla and Elon Musk teaches us some important corporate governance lessons on monitoring and vetting executive use of social media. As background, on August 7, 2018, the markets were surprised by a series of tweets initiated by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, Inc., in which Musk mused about taking Tesla...
As a continuation of our August 9 post regarding the deadline for Canadian companies to file a Form D for a private placement in the United States, we now address the questions, “What if our company missed the deadline to file a Form D with the SEC?” And, more importantly, “Have we lost our ability to...
Canadian companies that sell securities to U.S. investors under Regulation D must file a Form D with the SEC within 15 days after “the date of first sale.” Most people would assume that the closing of the offering is the date of sale. However, in the instructions to Form D, the SEC explains that the...
Since January 1, 2016, the SEC has publicly released its correspondence relating to 60 comment letters sent to Canadian issuers with respect to annual reports filed on Form 40-F pursuant to the Canada-U.S. Multi-Jurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS). We have analyzed the content and key takeaways from these letters, including: The SEC’s most common areas of...
The recent settlement agreement between Kinross Gold Company and the Securities and Exchange Commission is a reminder to Canadian cross-listed companies that it is not enough to adopt a parent-company level anti-corruption policy designed to promote compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Effective implementation and monitoring at the operating level is also needed....