The revised notice includes additional disclosure expectations that apply to all issuers with U.S. marijuana-related activities, including those with direct and indirect involvement in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, as well as issuers that provide goods and services to third parties involved in the U.S. marijuana industry. Issuers are expected to provide these disclosures in prospectus filings and other required documents, such as their Annual Information Form and Management’s Discussion and Analysis.

The CSA will continue to monitor developments in the U.S. marijuana industry.

Review the press release on the CSA's website and the Staff Notice on the CSA members’ websites.

From its intraday peak in December 2017 of $19,783, the price for bitcoin had fallen to $8,524, a decline of over 60%. Bitcoin’s price has fallen before and it has generally proven to be volatile. The price may yet escalate again. But if it has always been hard to specify a reason for the phenomenal price movements of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there certainly have been recent developments aplenty to undermine the price for these digital assets.

Review the blog on the D&O Diary's website.

When one looks at any list of prominent securities fraud lawsuits, it will probably be dominated by companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Cendant, and HealthSouth, which were charged with misleading investors by actively misstating financial results. The reality, however, is that most securities suits are premised on alleged omissions of material fact, and not the sorts of misrepresentations that capture headlines.

Review the publication on our US firm's website.

The Diversity Assessment Report is designed to help regulated entities conduct self-assessments of their diversity policies and practices, as envisioned by the Joint Standards, and provides these entities with a template for submitting information about their self-assessments to OMWI. The Joint Standards also encourage regulated entities to publish information related to their self-assessments on their websites.

Review the press release and the report on the SEC's website.

The study, by Rahul Vashishtha and Mohan Venkatachalam of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Arthur G. Kraft of the Cass Business School of City University London, is set to appear in an upcoming issue of The Accounting Review, published by the American Accounting Association. The professors found that, when new regulatory mandates forced companies to increase the frequency of their financial reporting, they reduced their annual capital investments by around 1.5 to 1.9 percent of their total assets, depending on how the capital investments were defined. The average annual capital investments of those companies totaled approximately 9 percent of assets, so those reductions were hefty cuts.

Review the full article on Accounting Today's website.

Two potential changes to the Whistleblower Program have been flagged by the Ontario government and the Commission, respectively.

• The Ontario government said it intends to introduce a civil cause of action for whistleblowers who experience reprisal for cooperating with the Commission.
• The Commission has proposed revisions to the Whistleblower Program to clarify that in-house counsel who report misconduct in breach of applicable law society rules will not be eligible for a whistleblower award.

Review the OSC Notice on the OSC's website and a summary on Torys LLP's website.

The next steps, in priority order, include:

1. Publishing Earnings Releases as human-and-machine readable Inline XBRL, with the information that is "the start of the food chain" being available in structured form.
2. Publishing Management Discussion and Analysis  ("MD&A", often called "management commentary" in Europe and Asia) numeric data in structured form.
3. Publishing MD&A textual data in block-tagged form.

Review the full article on XBRL's website.

On January 4, 2018, the U.S. Attorney General rescinded all previous guidance specific to federal law enforcement relating to marijuana, including the prior approach under the Cole Memorandum.

Issuers with no U.S. marijuana-related activities and that otherwise operate in compliance with applicable Canadian laws are not the focus.

The CSA will communicate more details about their position shortly.

Review the press release on the CSA's website.

The letter covers the following:

• Effectiveness of Rule to Shorten the Settlement Cycle, which took effect on August 28, 2017;
• Issuance of Material News in the Period Immediately After the Official Closing Time for the Exchange’s Trading Session, which took effect on December 4, 2017;
• Advance Notice of Dividend or Stock Distribution Announcements to the Exchange, which will take effect February 1, 2018;
• Annual Report Website Posting Requirement;
• Corporate Governance Requirements; and
• Important reminders for all issuers.

The letter is applicable to all listed issuers, with any rule or policy differences for Domestic vs. Foreign Private Issuers (“FPIs”) identified within.

Review the letter on the NYSE's website.

Part of this year’s cryptocurrency story has to include the SEC’s increasingly active approach to policing digital currency trading, as well as the rising numbers of lawsuits filed against cryptocurrency sponsors. In recent weeks claimants have filed a number of cryptocurrency-related securities lawsuits.

Taken collectively, the lawsuits give the definite impression the skyrocketing prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have attracted a lot of questionable activity. The questionable activity has in turn in many cases led to litigation. Even the downturn on Friday in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could generate further litigation, as investors who lose money on their investment may be motivated to pursue their litigation alternatives.

Signs are that cryptocurrency related litigation will be one of the early litigation filing trends and the sudden surge at year end of these kinds of lawsuits in all likelihood will continue.

Review the full article on the D&O Diary's website.