AMF publishes annual oversight report
The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the regulatory and oversight body for Quebec’s financial sector, released its annual Summary of Oversight and Regulatory Activities detailing the regulator’s key initiatives undertaken in the 2018-2019 financial year.
“Strengthening our role as a local regulator close to its markets is one of the pillars of our 2017-2020 Strategic Plan,” says AMF president and CEO Louis Morisset. “We are providing the industry, for a third consecutive year, with a comprehensive toll that specifies our continuous disclosure expectations and updates the status of our regulatory work.”
The summary outlines the main regulatory and filing deficiencies observed by the AMF and recommends ways companies can correct these deficiencies. It also recaps pending and draft regulatory initiatives and staff notices relating to company financing and continuous disclosure requirements. Outside of this, the report also examines some key figures regarding the representation of women on boards and in executive officer positions, and reviews the efforts the AMF has undertaken to establish a framework for crypto-asset trading platforms. Finally, the report also discusses efforts underway to migrate the SEDAR, SEDI and NRD national electronic filing systems to an integrated and comprehensive system.
The AMF currently oversees 1,957 reporting issuers in Quebec; for 696 of those reporting issuers the AMF is the principal regulator. Market capitalization of Quebec companies decreased to $396-billion in 2018, down from $440-billion in 2017, but still accounted for 16 per cent of the total market capitalization of companies in Canada.