Notice of Commission Approval – Universal Market Integrity Rules – Amendments Respecting Designations and Identifiers – Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC)

 
The Ontario Securities Commission has approved IIROC’s proposal to introduce two new order designations (bundled order designation and derivative-related cross designation) and modify the existing bypass order marker from a public to a private marker for bypass orders that are not part of a designated trade (“Amendments”).

The Amendments have also been approved or non-objected to by the Alberta Securities Commission; the Autorité des marchés financiers; the British Columbia Securities Commission; the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of Saskatchewan; the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick; the Manitoba Securities Commission; The Nova Scotia Securities Commission; the Office of the Superintendent of Services, Service Newfoundland and Labrador; and the Prince Edward Island Office of the Superintendent of Securities Office.

The Amendments are intended to achieve the following objectives:

• With respect to the bundled order designation, to restore the integrity of the order marker audit trail and eliminate the necessity to unbundle trades at the end of the day by filing a Corrections Report to the Regulatory Marker Correction System;
• With respect to the derivative-related cross designation, to provide adequate transparency to industry participants on derivative-related cross transactions that are not open to general market participation;
• With respect to the modification of the bypass order marker, to address potential information leakage that can result from the public display of the bypass order marker.

The Amendments were originally published for comment on June 9, 2016. IIROC has made non-substantive changes to the proposed amendments as published in response to comments received. A summary of the comments and IIROC’s responses, as well as the text of the approved Amendments, can be found at www.osc.gov.on.ca.

The Amendments will be effective on September 14, 2017.