In March, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced that due to COVID-19, it was postponing the 2020 Risk Assessment Questionnaire (RAQ) cycle until further notice. On May 28, chief compliance officers (CCOs) of registrants were notified that they will receive the RAQ on June 11, with responses due on August 6. The 2020 RAQ will ask for information for the periods ending December 31, 2018 and December 31, 2019.
In our January 2020 bulletin, we highlighted a number of changes that the OSC is introducing for the 2020 RAQ, including pre-population of the questionnaire with some of the answers from firms’ 2018 RAQ responses and data security enhancements.
But wait, there’s more: Because the 2020 RAQ will not cover the period when registrants were dealing with COVID-19, the OSC also will send out a short survey (Survey) on July 9, 2020 to gather information from January 1 to June 30, 2020 regarding COVID-19’s impact on each registered firm. The Survey will be sent to firms domiciled in Ontario, as well as to some firms where the OSC is not the principal regulator because the OSC is collecting the information for those other regulators. The deadline for completion also will be August 6, 2020.
We encourage firms to re-start their planning for this exercise now, if they haven’t already done so, and to schedule time with key individuals including the ultimate designated person (UDP) to review and sign off on the completed questionnaire. AUM Law has had extensive experience helping firms prepare their RAQs. If you would like us to help you complete this year’s RAQ and the Survey, please contact us for a fixed-fee quote.
May 29, 2020