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One might think, as the regulator argued, that “decision” means a final decision reached after investigation, consideration of the evidence, representations of the parties and adjudication. 322 of the Act, which gives the Bureau the jurisdiction to review any “decision rendered by the ”. If not, the executive should have sought judicial review in the ordinary courts (which would, at the very least, have applied a standard of review much more congenial to the regulator). Rather, the substantive issue was whether the Bureau had the authority to modify the prohibition. Section 245 of the Québec Securities Actgives it the power to impose confidentiality obligations in the context of an investigation. Interestingly, the decision did not turn on the legality of the prohibition on disclosure as such. The saga came to an end yesterday (barring the granting of leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada), with defeat for the regulator in Autorité des marchés financiers c. On (internal) appeal to the Bureau de décision et révision, the company won, and the auditors had the necessary information (almost) at their fingertips, at which point the regulator too cried foul and appealed to the ordinary courts. The auditors cried foul, arguing that they could not sign off on the company’s books without knowing the details of the investigation, which they could piece together once they had identified the requested documents. However, the company was forbidden from communicating the details of the requested documents to its auditors. Revealing the existence of an ongoing investigation was permitted, but not any details of the requested documents.Īfter some back and forth, the prohibition on disclosure was modified somewhat, so as to allow the company to comply with the request. In the same letter, however, the regulator purported to prevent the executive from telling anyone else about the documents (apart from the company’s lawyers). In the context of an ongoing investigation of the embattled engineering firm, SNC-Lavalin, Québec’s securities regulator compelled an executive to produce certain documents.