The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) recently announced that new OSC Rule 13-502 Fees and OSC Rule 13-503 (Commodity Futures Act) Fees and their respective companion policies will come into effect on April 2, 2023. As noted in our January 2022 bulletin article, the OSC had been consulting on changes to the fee calculations for certain market participants to reflect the growth in Ontario's over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market activities. The revised rules will introduce a new fee for entities that enter into OTC derivatives transactions but will moderately reduce participation fees for certain reporting issuers and registrants.
The amendments will also eliminate certain activity and late fees, and permanently eliminate late fees on certain registration form updates, including outside activities. With respect to fees for exempt trade reports, the fees payable will be reduced to $350.
No changes have been made to the original proposals regarding the simplification of the annual capital markets participation fee, where it will no longer be necessary to estimate revenues that are later adjusted. The fee will be based instead on actual financial information from the most recently audited financial statements. In addition, the current rush that registrants face to file the fee forms by the deadline of December 1 will be alleviated by a requirement to file between September 1 and November 1.
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