In an effort to speed up the capital raising process, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) are adopting a harmonized approach to providing issuers with early prospectus reviews.
The CSA published a staff notice that sets out a new confidential pre-filing review process that will allow issuers to submit their prospectuses for a regulatory review before filing them publicly.
The procedure is intended to help identify issues that might delay prospectus approval.
Some CSA jurisdictions already provide these sorts of pre-filing reviews, but they are mostly for complex and cross-border offerings.
The new harmonized approach set out in the regulators’ notice is intended to expand access to these reviews to all issuers (excluding investment funds).
The notice indicates that regulators will try to provide initial feedback on pre-filings within 10 working days.
“Allowing confidential pre-file reviews of prospectuses provides issuers with greater flexibility and more certainty in planning their securities offerings,” said Louis Morisset, chair of the CSA and president and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF).