Canadian Lawyer InHouse

geoff creighton, svP, general counsel, igm financial inc. Things seem to move in one-year cycles. Last year, I mused about the effect of pending anti-spam legislation on IGM's business, and that of other firms that rely on communication with clients or potential clients. That topic is timely again, as Industry Canada released its final regulations recently and the act will come into force in summer 2014. It appears the government has tried to mitigate the most troublesome features identified by industry, where the net intended to catch "bad actors" was cast far too wide and caught legitimate business activities. For example, the regulations establish exemptions for certain third-party referrals (the lifeblood of many small businesses) and businessto-business communications. The Canadian legislation still starts with a blanket prohibition, so how the exemptions are interpreted and applied (by the CRTC) will be critical. Last year I also noted the flurry of anna fung, vice president, legal and general counsel, regulatory initiatives that had been Timberwest forest corp. released by securities commissions; that Hindsight is always 20/20. As it turned out, 2013 was the year we too is timely once more — the CSA rolled out a new code of business conduct and ethics at TimberWest has completed a round of consultation which reflects current best practices and changes in laws in the on the duties of financial advisors, and competition and anti-trust area as well as in the anti-corruption and mutual fund fees, and recently released anti-bribery field. Both areas are potential minefields for resource its summary of those debates as a industries, and in particular, those that carry on business in foreign precursor to the regulators' own next jurisdictions. We have initiated a code of conduct annual certification process this year steps. Stay tuned for more. Finally, when which was preceded by in-person training sessions rolled out to all employees in the referring to my own company, I alluded organization regardless of their positions. By doing so, we are hopeful we will ingrain in to an appetite for possible international everyone a culture of "honouring our values and doing the right thing" rather than paying expansion — and in the past year, lip service to the ethical standards articulated in our new Code of Business Conduct. our Mackenzie Investments side has As for growth, while our desire to grow internationally has not taken hold this year, opened an office in Singapore, and our we are continually looking at building our business domestically as well as internationally. developing institutional capability is Opportunities for expansion in the forestry industry are becoming increasingly difficult to opening doors abroad. land as log prices continue on an upward climb and there is more competition to acquire So I guess I am either good at desirable assets. However, we are looking at other related uses of forestry lands that prognostication, or got lucky this year. optimize the potential return from tree to stump and enhance sustainability at the same time. It is an ongoing process of evaluating growth opportunities that present themselves while still attending to our knitting as responsible land and forest owners. jane fedoretz, vice president and general counsel, ceda international corp. As per the strategic plan we now have all of our operations in Canada. We acquired another company and the deal closed in July. This aligns with our strategic plan as it is a Canadian company located within the region where we do the majority of our business. We have worked on our compliance program. We established a registry and distribute bi-monthly compliance articles. The CEO of CEDA is astute to compliance matters and as such we are in the throes of developing a customized compliance training program. We also have a licence and are using RealBiz TM shorts, a compilation of ethics and compliance related videos, which have been developed by the Second City Comedy Troupe. They are short vignettes that are humorous, so have a great audience appeal, but send an important and impactful message. At each executive meeting I discuss compliance matters with the executive team, so that they can remain aware of recent developments. I am doing this at the board level as well. We are a small law department (over the course of this year our team shrank even further, so now we are down to two lawyers, me included, one paralegal, and one admin assistant), so we have limited resources and time but I am thrilled with what we have accomplished with this initiative. 28 February 2014 INHOUSE

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