The Canadian Securities Administrators announced Friday that their rule harmonizing the existing registration, prospectus, and issuer bid requirements for trades to employees, senior officers, directors, and consultants will become effective on August 15.

Multilateral Instrument 45-105.is an initiative of the securities regulators in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories. The say that, provided all necessary ministerial approvals are obtained, the new rule will come into force in August.

The new rule aims to harmonize the securities legislation that each jurisdiction has dictating exemptions from the registration requirement and the prospectus requirement for trades in securities of an issuer’s own issue to the issuer’s employees and others.

The rule was published for comment on Nov. 1, 2002. Seven comments were received, and the regulators note that it will have “clear cost savings and benefits to issuers” and would generally promote the efficient regulation of capital markets in Canada.

The regulators say they believe that harmonizing such requirements will ease the regulatory burden of issuers by reducing the sheer number of requirements that would otherwise require consideration. Because the instrument does not incorporate the filing or disclosure requirements previously contained local rules, they also believe that the cost of complying with securities legislation will be lowered.