The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) will stop publishing daily insider trading reports early next year, the exchanges announced in a notice published Friday.
The exchanges have received regulatory approval for a proposal that would revoke the requirement that they publicly disseminate insider trading summary reports at the end of the trading day. As a result, they will put an end to the publication of those reports, effective Mar 1, 2018.
The decision to seek permission to stop producing these reports comes “in response to client feedback,” the notice says.
According to the notice, a consultation on the relevance and usefulness of its daily insider trading reports generally supported the view that, “these reports are detrimental to large security holders because the published information can be used to disadvantage investors when acquiring or disposing of a large position.”
In its decision approving the proposal, the Ontario Securities Commission says that since the reporting requirement was imposed on the TSX and TSXV in 2006, “regulatory tools have been established that disclose material information, including insider trading information, to investors; … [and] other regulatory tools have been established to investigate illegal insider trading in the Canadian capital markets.”
Additionally, the OSC acknowledges that the daily reports do not reflect insider trading activity in the prevailing multi-marketplace environment.
It would not be “prejudicial to the public interest” to do away with the requirement, the OSC decision says.
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