Bill 96 has received assent and officially become law in the province of Quebec as of June 1, 2022. Bill 96 includes the requirement to register securities in French at the RDPRM. 

The focus of this ESC communication is around the impacts on the Personal Property Security Act (PPSA) registration submitted to the RDPRM.

The bill was passed June 1, 2022, and will take effect September 1, 2022. Important fines may result in noncompliance.

In summary, all RDPRM Registrations and Amendments will need to be in French.

ESC will take the following actions and will need your prompt collaboration:

1. ESC will extract all clauses that are used by your organization in our system and send them back to you for review and translation by July 25, 2022. Once the file is received by your team, please have it translated and returned to ESC by August 12, 2022. 
2. ESC will be taking measures to ensure any automated text within the platform, such as pre-generated language that appears for amendments, will be translated into French.

It will be the responsibility of your organization to ensure all RDPRM registration content submitted to ESC is translated into French effective September 1st, 2022.

This register is of a private nature, but the consultation of this register may be requested by the shareholders and creditors of the corporation, as well as their personal representatives. Some government agencies may also require consultation of this register, including Corporations Canada, any police force, the Canada Revenue Agency and any provincial body that has similar responsibilities, and some investigative bodies. With the Federal amendment, if a shareholder does not disclose, to the best of his or her knowledge, as soon as possible and in a precise and complete manner the information requested, or for a director or officer, if he consents to or incorporates false or misleading information, he or she may be exposed to a maximum fine of two hundred thousand dollars and a maximum imprisonment of six months, or one of these penalties.

Financial institutions already have a similar compliance responsibility in recent years and many use ESC Corporate Services Ltd.’s Attestanet system. We have adjusted this system for the needs of legal firms. With this tool, you have the choice to send the request for information to your customers or to enter the information for your client yourself. Learn More.