As part of the ESG-Focused Reviews, staff identified a number of sales communications that required disclaimers or other explanatory language to make the sales communication not misleading. Where disclaimers or any other explanations, qualifications, limitations or other statements are necessary or appropriate to make a sales communication not misleading, staff’s view is that such language should be included in the sales communication itself, unless there are physical or technical limitations that would prevent the sales communication from including such language.
If there are such limitations, staff’s view is that the disclaimer or explanatory language should be accessible in a different document or webpage within “one click” of the sales communication. In staff’s view, the sales communication should specifically indicate that the disclaimer or explanatory language can be accessed on the other document or webpage, and where technologically possible, the link should directly lead to the disclaimer or explanatory language on that other document or webpage. In staff’s view, it is not sufficient for the sales communication to simply include a link to another document or webpage which contains the disclaimer or explanatory language if it would not be apparent from the sales communication that the disclaimer or explanatory language is contained on the other document or webpage.
Where it is not possible to include a disclaimer or explanatory language in the sales communication itself or on a different document or webpage within “one click” of the sales communication (which may be the case with billboards, television advertising, or certain forms of social media, for example) staff’s view is that the sales communication should be created or written in such a way a s to not need any disclaimers or explanatory language to make it not misleading.