The new offence of "recommending" has been added to the Securities Act (Ontario) (the OSA). Effective July 1, 2016, the OSA includes a prohibition on recommending or encouraging the purchase or sale of securities of an issuer where the person or company making the recommendation is in a "special relationship" with the issuer and has knowledge of a material fact or material change with respect to such issuer that has not been generally disclosed. As previously discussed, this amendment broadens the insider trading provisions of the OSA and is in line with the securities legislation in most other Canadian jurisdictions.
The new provision was adopted as part of the Ontario Budget Measures Bill 173, which received royal assent on April 19, 2016. The section implementing the recommending prohibition was proclaimed into force effective July 1, 2016.
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