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Maple Group Acquisition Corporation – Ontario Securities Commission Request for Comments
Letter Summary:
The CAC is concerned with the fact that Maple investors can be assumed to be entering the transaction in order to maximize their profits, while the extent to which the new structure will affect the Canadian financial infrastructure is profound. As a result, there is little expectation that the public good will be the motivating force behind the changes since at the end of the day the profits will have to come at the expense of some of the market participants who are not likely to be the Maple shareholders. The CAC is concerned that transferring ownership of an SRO to the private sector is not likely to work out in the interest of the investing public in Canada.
Overview of the Council’s Comments:
The CSA we support efforts to modernize securities legislation and rules in Ontario and were pleased to see that a number of recommendations made by the Taskforce have been addressed. While we appreciate the platform approach taken by the Consultation Draft and the myriad proposals embedded in the draft Act, we believe that additional investor-friendly defining principles for the Act, such as an expanded legislative best interest standard to registrants with discretionary authority over client assets, would make the proposed Act worth the immense prospective effort of implementation for capital markets participants, investors, and regulators