Electronic filing fees are set to decline, as Canadian securities regulators are proposing to rejig their fee schedules for various filings.
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a series of proposed rule amendments Thursday, including changes to filing fees, as part of operational changes coming to various electronic filing systems (the System for Electronic Documents Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR), the System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders (SEDI), and the National Registration Database (NRD)).
According to a notice, the amendments are necessary due to the fact that its agreements with CDS Inc. to operate these various systems is due to expire in October, and the CSA is engaging a new service provider to take over their operations. At the same time, the regulators are consolidating and replacing the existing filing service charge schedules for SEDAR and NRD, while also taking, “advantage of cost saving opportunities under the new arrangements to reduce fees.”
While the fees are structured similarly, the CSA indicates that it expects system fee costs to decline by 6.5% on average for SEDAR filings, and by 6.6% on average for NRD filings, based on recent filing patterns (system fees are forecast to decline in approximately 40% of SEDAR filing situations, and approximately 24% of NRD filings). They are also proposing to eliminate the subscription fees that are currently charged for SEDAR filer software licences.
“The proposed system fees, when implemented, will yield benefits in the form of lower system costs for many filers,” it notes, adding that it doesn’t expect the changes to impact service levels, or the operation of the systems.
Comments are due by April 24, 2013.