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ARTICLE · 05 SEPTEMBER 2017

McMillan Advises On First Initial Coin Offering Granted Exemptive Relief By Canadian Securities Regulators

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McMillan recently advised Impak Finance Inc. ("Impak") on the first initial coin offering ("ICO") to be granted exemptive relief, on August 15, 2017 by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (the "AMF").

CanadaTechnology
Kosta Kostic
Kosta Kostic
Valenteena Suvaminathan
Valenteena Suvaminathan
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Co-authored by Simon Paransky, Summer Law Student

McMillan recently advised Impak Finance Inc. ("Impak") on the first initial coin offering ("ICO") to be granted exemptive relief, on August 15, 2017 by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (the "AMF"). Similar in some ways to an initial public offering ("IPO"), ICOs are being used by financial technology ("fintech") businesses to issue cryptocurrency and raise funds for various purposes. On August 24, 2017, the Canadian Securities Administrators (the "CSA") published CSA Staff Notice 46-307 – Cryptocurrency Offerings (the "Staff Notice") to provide guidance on the applicability of securities laws to ICOs. The Staff Notice states that securities laws will apply to an ICO if it is an offering of a "security".1 The Staff Notice was published in all jurisdictions of Canada except Saskatchewan. It is expected that the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan will advise of its approach to cryptocurrency

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