The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions has published regulations on penalties for late or erroneous filings.

The Superintendent is authorized to assess penalties against financial institutions or administrators of pension plans where they fail to file required information that is on time, or where it is inaccurate or incomplete. Amounts collected under the late or erroneous filing penalty framework will be remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Under the regulations, a financial institution that has total assets less than $250 million, will be charged $100 for each day during which the failure is committed or continued; those with assets between $250 million and $10 billion will pay $250 per day; and big banks will pay $500 a day. The maximum penalty is $25,000.

OSFI says that of the 480 institutions that must file with it, there is a high frequency of late and erroneous filings. For example, over one third of all quarterly financial returns filed in the first three quarters of 1999, and over one half of the required filings of a key non-financial return for 1999, were filed late.

OSFI says the late and erroneous filings place a significant operational burden on it and efforts to date to minimize their frequency have had only limited success. By creating meaningful consequences OSFI anticipates that the industry’s overall filing behaviour will improve.

All violations that occur on or after April 1, 2002, will be assessed the appropriate penalty amounts. The first invoices will be issued after June 30, 2002, for the second calendar quarter of 2002.