On September 5, 2019, the Canadian Securities Administrators
(CSA) published for comment proposed amendments to National Instrument
51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations (NI
51-102), which would relax the requirements for certain
public companies to file a business acquisition report
(BAR) in connection with business
acquisitions.
The potential changes are informed by comment letters and
stakeholder feedback obtained by the CSA in response to a consultation paper published in 2017. Any
comments on the proposed amendments to the BAR requirements are due
to the CSA by December 4th of this year.
Objective
In proposing these amendments, the regulators' stated
objective is to reduce the regulatory burden imposed by the current
BAR requirements, without compromising investor protection. The
proposed amendments are just one of six areas of securities
legislation applicable to non-investment fund reporting issuers
that could see a reduction in regulatory requirements
