The Ontario Securities Commission has published a notice outlining legislative amendments to enshrine civil liability for secondary market disclosure, along with a few other “housekeeping” changes.

On August 2, the Government of Ontario announced that the amendments to the Securities Act concerning civil liability for continuous disclosure, fraud and market manipulation, and misleading or untrue statements, will come into force on December 31.

The OSC notice points out that amendments to the Commodity Futures Act concerning fraud and market manipulation, and misleading statements will also come into on December 31.

The amendments to the Securities Act and to the Commodity Futures Act were originally enacted in 2002 as part of Bill 198. These provisions were subsequently amended in the fall of 2004 (Bill 149).

The government also announced amendments to the regulations under the Securities Act. Some of the amendments relate to civil liability for continuous disclosure and will come into force on July 29, 2005. Others are housekeeping amendments and came into effect on the date they were filed.

These housekeeping amendments include: removing “underwriter” as a separate category of registration; amendments to no longer require fund dealers that are members in good standing with the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada to file their financials with the OSC; among other things.