Half of all Canadian publicly traded companies listed on the S&P/TSX Composite Index disclosed stock-based compensation in their Q3 2002 earnings news release.

This compares to 48.5% in Q2 according to Canada NewsWire’s Earnings Division.

The benchmark finding rides on the heels of recent debate on disclosure reform in Canada. As of Jan. 1, 2002, new disclosure standards require public companies to include discussion on stock-based compensation in interim financial reporting, calculated using a fair value method of accounting such as a Black-Scholes calculation.

“The Q3 2002 CNW Earnings Analysis indicates that more index listed companies have accepted the overall context of disclosure in the post-Enron era,” said Tom Enright, president and CEO of Canada NewsWire.

Enhanced interim financial disclosure continues to dominate corporate reporting trends with Q3 2002 earnings news releases surpassing Q2 2002 releases in average length by 20%. CNW reports an average quarterly growth of 17% in the length of earnings news releases, quarter over quarter in 2002.

“It is apparent from the lengthening of releases, with notes and management discussion and analysis (MD&A), that issuers are responding to the regulators’ desire that these interim releases provide significant disclosure of results and trends in between the annual reports,” said Ross McKee, Partner with Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. “With the oncoming new laws on civil liability for continuous disclosure, I expect that further detail will be added to earnings news releases,” he added.