Principles-Based Changes Proposed To Canadian Corporate Governance And Audit Committee Regimes

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) recently published for comment proposed amendments to the CSA's corporate governance and audit committee regimes for Canadian issuers. The CSA have invited comments on their proposals by April 20, 2009.

The proposed regimes would introduce principles-oriented changes in three main areas:

• National Policy 58-201 Corporate Governance Principles would be a broader and more principles-based policy than the current one.
• National Instrument 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices would be amended such that more general disclosure requirements would replace the existing "comply-or-explain" disclosure model.
• National Instrument 52-110 Audit Committees and its related companion policy would be revised such that a principles-based approach to determining director and audit committee member independence would replace the current approach.