Regulating Venture Issuers - A New Approach?

On May 31, 2010, securities regulators in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia published a consultation paper designed to assess market interest in developing a more tailored approach to regulating venture issuers.

Multilateral Consultation Paper 51-403 – Tailoring Venture Issuer Regulation ("MCP 51-403") – seeks input on whether the current venture market regulatory regime could be updated to enhance investor protection, reduce regulatory costs for venture issuers and allow management to focus more attention on business development.

Some of the key features of the consultation paper include:

• eliminating the requirement for three- and ninemonth interim financial statements and associated management's discussion and analysis ("MD&A");