January 12, 2009
Canada Adopts New Pay Disclosure Rules
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
Back in September, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) adopted new executive and director compensation disclosure regulations after three years of proposals that commenced after the SEC adopted new rules (the CSA rules were last signficantly revised back in ’94). The new disclosure rules took effect on December 31st. While the revised rules follow the general theme and structure of the SEC’s new rules (eg. CD&A), Canadian regulators sought to simplify them.
Most Canadian issuers that are also subject to SEC reporting requirements can choose to disclose under either CSA or SEC rules. Many Canadian issuers have already voluntarily adopted “best practice” disclosure standards or aligned their disclosure practices with provisions of the latest CSA proposals, so they will now be amending their disclosures to fine-tune them (many issuers voluntarily adopted disclosure standards advocated in the “Best Practice in Compensation Disclosure” published by the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance.) In our “International” Practice Area, we have posted memos regarding the new rules.