The Insider Trading Task Force has endorsed best practices guides developed by the Canadian Investor Relations Institute and the Canadian Securities Administrators as a disclosure standard for public companies.
“CIRI developed this guide to help our members stay current and take a leadership role in their companies on key disclosure issues,” said John Rogers, CIRI chairman and vice president investor relations for Suncor Energy Inc. “We are very pleased that CIRI has been recognized as an authority on disclosure best practices in Canadian capital markets.”
The task force suggests that Canadian equity marketplaces amend their timely disclosure policies to:
- recommend that issuers adopt the best practices provided in the CSA disclosure standards policy and the CIRI standards and guidelines for disclosure; and
- emphasize … the responsibility of boards of directors and senior officers of issuers for compliance with best practices for information containment, as exemplified by the CSA and CIRI best practices….
CIRI’s disclosure standards were published in 1998 and updated in 2001 and 2003, and subsequently translated into French by the CIRI Quebec Chapter. “They provide a practical investor relations tool that describes practices that should be used by public companies to avoid selective disclosure, and provides a framework for developing a written disclosure policy,” CIRI said in a statement. The standards are provided free to CIRI members and are available to others for $100.
The Insider Trading Task Force was formed in September 2002 and consists of members from the Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec securities commissions, the Investment Dealers Association of Canada, the Bourse de Montréal and Market Regulation Services Inc.