As part of its annual review, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) published an updated OSC Service Commitment and announced that all the temporary changes to its service commitments previously announced on December 7, 2021 (the Temporary Changes) have been extended to March 31, 2023, with the exception of service standard 3.9 Prospectus Amendments: Completion of Review, which has returned to the original timeline in effect prior to December 7, 2021.
The Temporary Changes, which extend the timelines related to reviews of certain offering documents, including prospectuses, as well as compliance reviews, applications and other registration materials, were brought into effect in response to a significant increase in the volume and complexity of certain applications and filings and the general growth of the capital markets in Ontario. Among other changes, the updated Service Commitment includes a new service standard for issuing first comment letters in relation to confidential prospectus pre-files submitted to the OSC.
A comparison chart outlining all updates to the OSC Service Commitment can be found here.
The full text of the OSC’s updated Service Commitment can be found here.