(June 6 – 17:00 ET) – Staff of the Ontario Securities Commission have issued a notice reminding non-SRO registrants of their regulatory filing requirements.
Most non-SRO members must file annual audited financial statements within 90 days of their fiscal year end, and they must also maintain certain minimum capital and other regulatory requirements. However, “Staff have noted that non-SRO registrants are at times deficient in meeting their regulatory filing requirements. These deficiencies include failure to file audited financial statements, late filings of audited financial statements or filings with a qualified audit opinion or a capital deficiency reported.”
The OSC says these filings should be timely and complete, noting that it is “treating regulatory filing deficiencies as a significant issue to be addressed as part of the commission’s objective to strengthen the Compliance-Enforcement continuum”.
It says that delinquent filers could faced stiffer requirements, including a requirement to file on a monthly basis and an increase in the required minimum free capital. They could also face a prohibition on the opening of any new branches, a prohibition on hiring new salespeople, a prohibition on the opening of new customer accounts, or against changing the inventory positions of the registrant.