Justice Minister Arif Virani yesterday finally bowed to public pressure by agreeing to split Bill C-63, the Online Harms bill. The move brings to an end the ill-conceived attempt to wedge together Internet platform responsibility with Criminal Code provisions and the potential weaponization of the Canada Human Rights Act that had rightly sparked concerns
Canada’s largest media companies, including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Postmedia, CBC, and Canadian Press, came together last week to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, the owners of ChatGPT. The lawsuit is the first high profile Canadian claim lodged against the enormously popular AI service, though there have been similar suits filed
The proposed Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) in incoming President Donald J. Trump’s administration promises an ambitious agenda of “regulatory rescission, administrative reductions and cost savings” with the goal of “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy” by July 4, 2026.[1] Many questions remain about the logistical and legal paths to accomplish these objectives.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on November 22 that it filed 583 total enforcement actions in fiscal year 2024 while obtaining orders for $8.2 billion in financial remedies, the highest amount in SEC history.
As November comes to an end, the busy annual reporting and proxy season begins for many public companies. In this Client Update, we highlight key considerations for public companies when preparing their annual reports on Form 10-K or Form 20-F, including a new exhibit filing requirement for insider trading policies. For a checklist covering these
The regulatory sandbox modelA regulatory sandbox is a policy tool through which organizations can offer and test new models or services to assess marketability and impact, and to inform future policymaking while maintaining consumer protection. Regulatory sandboxes involve risk-based regulation and include one or more regulatory models. The regulatory sandbox model was first developed in
On October 21, 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Division of Examinations (“Examination Division”) announced its 2025 Examination Priorities (“Report”). Investment advisers and broker-dealers should ensure that policies, procedures and surveillance efforts related to these priorities address concerns outlined in the Report.
The Examination Division conducts inspections of entities registered with the SEC,
On October 28, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued final regulations implementing an outbound investment control regime targeting AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing investments involving China that raise national security concerns. The regulations’ prohibitions and reporting requirements go into effect on January 2, 2025.
Outbound investment regulations have arrived, and with them the
The Canadian government has just announced the conclusion of its national security review of TikTok and arrived at a curious conclusion: it plans to ban the company from operating in Canada but the app will remain available here. I wrote earlier this year about the need for better laws to counter the risks associated with
The 2024 proxy season was characterized by a high volume of shareholder proposals submitted to companies, including proposals relating to topical issues such as artificial intelligence (“AI”) and political lobbying and spending. In addition, the number of no-action requests submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) increased compared to 2023. Based on our