Insider reporting
Directors, officers, and significant shareholders of a reporting issuer must disclose their ownership of and transactions in the issuer's securities to regulators and to the public on a timely basis. In Canada, this obligation is governed primarily by National Instrument 55-104 Insider Reporting Requirements and Exemptions, which consolidated and modernised the insider reporting regime that previously operated under individual provincial securities statutes. The purpose of the regime is to give investors and the market visibility into the trading activity of individuals who possess or are presumed to possess material non-public information about the issuer.
Who is a reporting insider
The concept of "reporting insider" under NI 55-104 is narrower than the broader statutory category of "insider." A reporting insider is an individual who, through their relationship with the issuer or with a significant holder of the issuer's securities, would reasonably be expected to have regular access to material facts or material changes regarding the issuer before those facts or changes are generally disclosed.
Categories deemed reporting insiders
The categories that are always reporting insiders include: directors and officers of the issuer; directors and officers of a significant shareholder of the issuer (holding 10 per cent or more of voting securities); directors and officers of a subsidiary of the issuer; and the issuer itself for purposes of any trades in its own securities. Individuals who are in a special advisory or consulting relationship that grants access to material undisclosed information are also reporting insiders if the agreement or understanding governing the relationship so provides.
A person who is uncertain whether they qualify as a reporting insider should obtain legal advice before trading, as the consequences of late or missed filing are reputational, regulatory, and potentially penal. The BCSC and other provincial commissions publish general guidance on who falls within the definition, but individual facts drive the determination.
Transactions that trigger a report
A reporting insider must file an insider report upon two distinct triggering events. First, the initial report: within ten calendar days of becoming a reporting insider, the individual must file an initial insider report on Form 55-102F2 disclosing their current holdings of securities of the issuer, including all classes of equity, options, convertible debt, and any other securities convertible into equity. Second, subsequent reports: within five calendar days of any transaction in the issuer's securities — including acquisitions, dispositions, grants of options or restricted units, exercises of options, and conversions of convertible securities — the reporting insider must file a subsequent insider report, on the same Form 55-102F2 used for the initial report; a paper-filing alternative to the standard electronic SEDI submission is also available.
Five-day window and transaction date
The five-day window runs from the date of the transaction, not from the date of settlement. For publicly traded securities, the transaction date is the trade date on which the order executes, not the settlement date (which may occur two business days later under the standard T+2 settlement cycle). For privately negotiated transactions or compensation-related grants, the transaction date is the date on which the relevant agreement or grant becomes binding.
SEDI and the filing mechanics
All insider reports in Canada are filed through the System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders (SEDI), an online platform administered by CDS Innovations Inc. under contract with the Canadian Securities Administrators. Access to SEDI requires a pre-established filer profile linked to the reporting insider's Social Insurance Number and to the specific issuer for which reports will be filed.
Prior to filing any insider report, the issuer must itself be registered in SEDI and must designate an issuer representative responsible for approving insider profiles and updating the issuer's security designation file. For a new reporting issuer, the initial SEDI setup requires the issuer to file an Issuer Profile Supplement (IPS) identifying all classes of outstanding securities. Each security class must be designated before any reporting insider can file a report referencing it.
Public visibility of filings
The SEDI system is publicly searchable. Any member of the public can query the insider trading records of any reporting issuer and see the aggregate, direction, and timing of transactions by each named reporting insider. This public visibility is the mechanism by which insider reporting serves its investor protection and market integrity purpose: unusual patterns of insider buying or selling are visible to all market participants.
Exemptions and blackout periods
NI 55-104 provides a number of exemptions from the standard reporting obligation. The most significant for compensation-related transactions is the exemption for certain automatic securities disposition plans: where a reporting insider has established a written plan for the pre-scheduled sale of securities, filed before the issuer's next blackout period begins, and the plan precludes the insider from making trading decisions once established, the exemption can provide relief from the standard reporting timeline for transactions executed under the plan. Legal counsel should be consulted before establishing any such plan.
Blackout periods under issuer policy
Blackout periods are not mandated by NI 55-104 but are typically required by the issuer's own insider trading policy. A standard blackout period begins two to three weeks before the end of a fiscal quarter and ends two full trading days after the issuer's earnings release for that quarter. During a blackout, reporting insiders are prohibited from trading in the issuer's securities regardless of whether they possess material non-public information, as a prophylactic measure to eliminate the appearance of trading on undisclosed earnings information.
Cross-jurisdictional equivalents
As a prospective Regulated Reporting Entity in multiple jurisdictions, Woodfine Capital Projects intends to maintain an insider reporting framework consistent across all Qualified Jurisdictions in which it becomes a reporting entity, adapted to the specific requirements of each.
United States: Section 16 of the Exchange Act
In the United States, the equivalent obligation is Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which requires reporting persons (directors, officers, and beneficial owners of more than 10 per cent of a class of equity securities) to file Form 3 (initial report) within 10 days of becoming a reporting person, and Form 4 (change report) within two business days of any reportable transaction. The two-day window in the US is materially shorter than the Canadian five-day window and requires electronic filing through the SEC's EDGAR system.
European Union: Market Abuse Regulation
In the European Union, insider trading disclosure obligations for issuers listed on EU-regulated markets are governed by the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014, which requires persons discharging managerial responsibilities and their closely associated persons to notify the issuer and the relevant competent authority of every transaction in the issuer's financial instruments within three business days.
See also
- Continuous disclosure obligations — the issuer-level regime under NI 51-102 that runs alongside the individual-level obligation described here
- Material change reporting — how the issuer discloses the material changes a reporting insider is presumed to know before the market does
- Filing systems — SEDAR+, the platform carrying the issuer's own continuous-disclosure filings, distinct from the SEDI system described here
- Regulated reporting entity — the issuer status that brings directors, officers, and significant shareholders within the insider reporting regime
- Corporate governance documents — the board instruments, including the planned code of business conduct on confidential information, alongside which an issuer's own trading policy sits
Cite this record: /wiki/about-insider-reporting — revision 00fc4d77, last updated 4 September 2026.