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Registration and Compliance

Public Availability of Information from Regulatory Investigations

Published: 06/22/2010

By Ellen Bessner

You are a registered advisor or dealer who has been investigated by IIROC or the MFDA. While you are concerned about the outcome of the investigation, you are also concerned about the public availability of material involved in the investigation. In accordance with your duty to cooperate with an investigation, you have handed over several documents to the regulator and been interviewed by staff. The alleged misconduct may have even been the subject of a hearing and a written decision. While not necessarily incriminating, some of these records contain information you would prefer not to be in the public domain – both because of reputational concerns and the potential for documents to be used against you in a civil lawsuit arising from the same alleged misconduct that was the subject of the regulatory investigation.

The reality is that some of the information compiled during an investigation is publicly available. However, much of it is not. This chart sets out what information you should expect the public to have access to and what information will remain confidential. We have also indicated the applicable IIROC and MFDA provisions.