THE CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

The Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) is the regulator of the local securities sector; a sector which forms an integral part of our country’s financial system. As such, the Commission is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that this sector operates within an effective regulatory framework which protects the rights of investors, promotes fairness, efficiency and transparency and reduces the risk posed by systemic pressures.

As the Chairman of the new Board of Commissioners, I am pleased to report on the significant strides that we have made in fulfilling our responsibilities during fiscal 2016.

Legislative Agenda

In fiscal 2016, we focused our attention on updating several pieces of subsidiary legislation which included the Draft Repurchase Agreement (Repo) Guidelines and Draft Guidelines for the De-registration of Reporting Issuers and Collective Investment Schemes (CISs). The Draft Repo Guidelines were completed in consultation with the Minister of Finance as required by section 146 of the Securities Act, 2012 (the Act) and we expect to issue them for public comment in fiscal 2017.

The Draft for the Re-registration of Reporting Issuers and CISs was also submitted to the Minister of Finance for comment.

In addition to these Guidelines, significant progress has been made in:

• Developing Collective Investment Scheme By-Laws (to replace the existing Collective Investment Scheme Guidelines 2008);

• Developing new Take-Over By-Laws (to replace The Securities Industry (Take-Over) By-Laws 2005);

• Updating the existing Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) 2011 to align them with recent legislative developments in this area; and

• Developing Market Conduct Guidelines to assist market actors in fulfilling their fiduciary duties to their clients and maintaining high standards of integrity and fair dealing in the conduct of their business activities.

During fiscal 2017, we intend to continue our work on these pieces of subsidiary legislation as well as to begin revising and updating the Securities Industry (Hearing and Settlements) Practice Rules 2008.

Enforcement

Ensuring that the securities sector operates within a robust regulatory framework allows us as a regulator to fulfil only part of our mandate to protect investors while ensuring fairness, efficiency and transparency. To fully achieve our mandate, we must also ensure that market participants comply with the laws governing the framework. The need to ensure compliance requires us to have the necessary infrastructure to detect instances of market manipulation as well as to enforce the governing pieces of legislation. In fiscal 2016, we began the process of identifying suitable systems which would enhance our market surveillance activities such as the detection of insider trading activities.

We also enhanced our process for the detection of noncompliance with the continuous disclosure requirements contained in the Act, such as filing obligations relating to annual reports, interim financial statements and connected persons’ reports. Consequently, we detected 139 instances where these continuous disclosure requirements were contravened.