Category: Securities

Securities

Compliance with XBRL for Foreign Private Issuers that Prepare their Financial Statements in Accordance with IFRS Required Beginning with Annual Reports for Fiscal Periods Ending on or after December 15, 2017

On March 1, 2017, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published the taxonomy for the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IFRS). Accordingly, foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements in accordance with IFRS...

Natural Resources / Securities

Resource Extraction Disclosure Requirements are Dumped

Canadian miners and oil & gas companies should be aware that on February 14, 2017, President Trump approved a joint resolution of Congress that disapproved a recent SEC rule requiring specific disclosure by resource extraction issues. The obligation to report was imposed by Rule 13q-1 under the Exchange Act. The rules would have required resource...

Capital Markets / Securities

SEC Issues No Action Letter Regarding Canadian Companies’ Registration of Rights Offerings on MJDS Form F-7

In December 2015, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced an amended regime for a prospectus-exempt rights offering in Canada. This amended regime allows certain public companies in Canada to conduct a prospectus-exempt rights offering without prior CSA review of the rights offering circular, and using a greatly simplified rights offering circular that assumes, without incorporation...

Securities

OTCQX Update

In recent years, many Canadian companies have sought to create a U.S. market for their shares by listing on the OTCQX. Qualifying Canadian companies that have their primary listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the TSX Venture Exchange or the Canadian Securities Exchange may generally obtain a quotation on the OTCQX or the next lower...

Benefits / M&A / Securities

New Approach for the Assumption of Options in M&A

A Canadian SEC reporting company that looks to acquire a company with outstanding equity grants in the United States will frequently need to address the question: What alternatives are available for the assumption of the target’s outstanding options or other equity-based compensatory awards? Under U.S. law, both the grant of the equity award and the...

Corporate / Securities

SEC Provides Clarification of Foreign Private Issuer Calculation

For Canadian issuers and their advisers, compliance with U.S. securities laws generally begins with the question: Is the issuer a “foreign private issuer”? The FPI definition, which is set out in Rule 405 under the Securities Act and 3b-4(c) of the Exchange Act, involves the following four inquiries: Are more than 50% of the issuer’s...

Securities

The Importance of Monitoring Your Foreign Private Issuer Status

Being a “foreign private issuer” is very important to a Canadian company’s treatment under U.S. securities laws.  If a Canadian company ceases to qualify as a foreign private issuer under the rules of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), it must generally: Change the way in which it offers and sells its own securities to...

Corporate / Securities

Staying Onside the Regulation D Bad Boy Disqualifications

Most non-underwritten private placements of securities by Canadian companies to U.S. investors are made in reliance upon Rule 506 of Regulation D. Since September 2013, this exemption has been subject to “bad boy disqualifications.” Generally speaking, a company is prohibited from relying on Rule 506 if the company, any of its predecessors, any of its...

Corporate / M&A / Securities / Tax

Canadian Plan of Arrangement – Do I Need U.S. Counsel?

You’re a Canadian public company with no U.S. operations.  You don’t file reports with the SEC.  You plan to merge with another Canadian public company in a share-for-share exchange, structured as a Canadian plan of arrangement.  Do you need to hire U.S. counsel to assist on this Canadian deal? Yes. Canadian public companies invariably have...