Regulatory Alerts2021-02-25
CSA Staff Notice 51-362: Staff Review of COVID-19 Disclosure and Guide for Disclosure Improvements
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) issued Staff Notice 51-362 to report on continuous disclosure reviews concerning the impact of COVID-19 on reporting issuers' businesses and to provide guidance for disclosure improvements. While many issuers provided quality disclosures, the CSA identified areas needing improvement, including insufficient entity-specific detail, boilerplate language, and instances of unbalanced or overly promotional disclosure regarding COVID-19's impact. The notice emphasizes that issuers must provide transparent and balanced disclosures covering operational and financial impacts, liquidity, capital resources, key risks, known trends, management's responses, and areas of significant judgment and measurement uncertainty in financial reporting.