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National Policy 51-201 Disclosure Standards
Part VI Best Disclosure Practices
Section 6.4

Board and Audit Committee Review of Certain Disclosure

(1) Have your board of directors or audit committee review the following disclosures in advance of their public release by the company:

You should also indicate at the time such information is publicly released whether your board or audit committee has reviewed the disclosure. Having your board or audit committee review such disclosure in advance of its public release acts as a good discipline on management and helps to increase the quality, credibility and objectivity of such disclosures. This review process also helps to force a critical examination of all issues related to the disclosure and reduces the risk of having to make subsequent adjustments or amendments to the information it contains.

(2) Where feasible, issue your earnings news release [FN 39] concurrently with the filing of your quarterly or annual financial statements. This will help to ensure that a complete financial picture is available to analysts and investors at the time the earnings release is provided. Coordinating the release of a company’s earnings information with the filing of its quarterly or annual financial statements will also facilitate review of these disclosures by the board or audit committee of the company. [FN 40]

FN 38 Some provinces require that annual financial statements be reviewed by a company’s audit committee (if the company has an audit committee) before board approval. A board of directors must also review interim financial statements before they are filed and distributed. In the case of interim financial statements, boards are permitted to delegate this review function to the audit committee (see for example, OSC Rule 52-501 Financial Statements). Where such a requirement exists at law, we believe that extracting information from financial statements that have not been reviewed by the board or audit committee and releasing that information to the marketplace in a news release is inconsistent with the prior review requirement.

FN 39 Companies often issue news releases announcing corporate earnings which highlight major items and may include pro forma results.

FN 40 Certain jurisdictions impose a requirement to concurrently deliver to shareholders financial statements that are filed. This may militate against the early filing of annual financial statements to avoid the cost of mailing them twice, once at the time of early filing and subsequently as part of the company’s annual report. The CSA is considering eliminating this concurrent delivery obligation in the context of harmonizing continuous disclosure requirements across the country.