The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) conducts regular compliance reviews on registrants to ensure firms are in compliance with regulatory requirements. The commission gathers information about each firm such as business operations, practices and procedures by sending out risk assessment questionnaires for firms to complete, and will select firms for a compliance review based on a firm's risk ranking. Registrants can sometimes get caught off guard when they receive the RAQ and find themselves scrambling at the last minute to have the questionnaire completed. Well if you have not gotten around to submitting your questionnaire, here's a reminder that those deadlines are slowly creeping up...
By now you should have received an e-mail with your firm's URL link to provide you with access to the questionnaire so you can complete and submit the form. This year the OSC has made some notable changes to the form such as providing a separate form for each section of the RAQ based on registration category. Registrants complete the General section of the Questionnaire along with a separate form that is applicable to their registration category e.g. Exempt Market Dealer, Investment Fund Manager, etc. The OSC has also introduced a Prospectus-Exempt Fund Form to be completed by investment fund managers that manage any non-prospectus qualified funds. For firms that manage more than 10 prospectus-exempt investment funds, a Prospectus-exempt Investment Fund Excel spreadsheet is available to be downloaded and attached to the form. Firms managing 10 or less prospectus-exempt investment funds must provide responses directly in the prospectus-exempt fund form. The RAQ also allows multiple people to work on different sections of the questionnaire simultaneously. For example, one person can work on filling in the General section while another works on completing the section applicable to the firm's category of registration.
At the beginning of each section of the questionnaire, there is an attestation statement that must be electronically certified by the Ultimate Designated Person (UDP) in order for responses to be accepted. All sections of the questionnaire are to be filed by May 30, 2018 and the Prospectus-Exempt Fund Form is to be filed by June 30, 2018. The responses provided in the questionnaire should be for the period ended December 31, 2017.
If you have questions regarding the RAQ or you have not submitted your questionnaire and would like assistance with the completion of the document, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our investment funds practice group and we would be pleased to assist you with getting the document submitted on time.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
