Investor advocates, regulators, lawyers, and academics are lining up to hash out the question of whether the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) should introduce a whistleblower program that pays for tips.
The OSC will hold a roundtable on June 9 in Toronto to discuss the proposed introduction of a whistleblower program at the country’s largest securities regulator. The OSC announced its agenda for the roundtable on Friday.
The OSC’s proposal is modeled on the program introduced by the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC pays tipsters for reporting suspected misconduct and securities law violations that result in significant enforcement penalties.
The OSC’s proposal was outlined in a discussion paper published earlier this year, and the consultation period for the paper recently concluded.
The roundtable will be organized into three main sessions, according to the OSC agenda.
One session, which will discuss the effectiveness of whistleblower programs, will feature Mary Condon, former OSC vice chairwoman and current commissioner; Marian Passmore, director of policy at the investor advocacy group, the Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights (FAIR Canada); John Pecman, commissioner of competition at the Competition Bureau; Dimitri Lascaris, class action lawyer, Siskinds LLP; and Jane Norberg, deputy chief at the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower.
A session examining the issue of whistleblower protections, including confidentiality provisions and anti-retaliation measures, will feature Alan Lenczner, prominent lawyer and current OSC commissioner; Connie Craddock, former chairwoman and current member of the OSC’s independent Investor Advisory Panel (IAP); and a trio of lawyers, Daniel Pugen from McCarthy Tétrault, David Hausman of Fasken Martineau, and Jordan Thomas from U.S. legal firm Labaton Sucharow LLP, which specializes in representing SEC whistleblowers.
The third panel will look at the possible impact of a reward-based whistleblower program on firms’ internal compliance systems.
A number of the discussion paper comments expressed concerns that the prospect of financial rewards will undermine internal reporting systems, as prospective whistleblowers will take their concerns straight to the regulator instead.
See: Blowing the whistle on wrongdoing
The panel will feature Tim Moseley, OSC commissioner; Megan Telford, vice president, global head of employee relations at TD Bank Group; Sheila Murray, executive vice president and general counsel at CI Financial Corp.; Linda Fuerst , partner at Lenczner Slaght; and Christine Wiedman, accounting professor at the University of Waterloo.