In order to ensure fair treatment, you are required to adopt an internal policy for the processing of complaints and settlement of disputes relating to a distributed product or service. Ideally, your policy contains the following sections:

Purpose of the policy

The purpose of the policy is to ensure fair and free processing of complaints. Specifically, it provides a framework for receiving complaints, sending acknowledgments of receipt and notices to complainants, creating complaint records, sending records to the AMF when a complainant requests it, and submitting complaint reports to the AMF.

Contact information of the complaints officer

This person applies the policy and acts as official respondent with the AMF and the complainant.

Definition of a complaint

What is a complaint?

On receipt of a complaint

• Send an acknowledgment of receipt and notice to the complainant
• Open a separate record for each complaint
• Send the complaint record to the AMF when requested to do so by the complainant

Contents of a complaint record

A record must be created for each complaint and include all documents relating to the complaint.

Description of your complaint process

Describe your complaint process and give a reasoned written response.

Transferring a complaint record to the AMF

A complainant who is not satisfied with the business’s final position or the way the complaint has been handled may request that you transfer the record to the AMF.

The transferred record must contain all the documents related to the complaint.

Complaint reporting obligation

The person responsible for applying the policy must create and maintain a register of all complaints received. This register can facilitate submission of the complaint report to the AMF.

You must receive your clients’ complaints and process them in an impartial manner.

Create a record for each complaint processed

Create a record for each complaint processed. This record will be the one sent to the AMF, at the complainant’s request.

The record must contain:

• The complaint and all documents sent by the complainant
• Your analysis of the complaint
• Any information related to the complaint
• Your written final response with the reasons for it

On receipt of the complaint, you must send an acknowledgment of receipt and a notice to the complainant.

The acknowledgment of receipt

The acknowledgment of receipt must contain:

• The name of the complaints officer
• How long the complainant can expect it to take to process the complaint
• The notice to the complainant

Notice to the complainant

The purpose of this notice is to inform the complainant of the following:

• If the complainant is not satisfied with the final position obtained or the way the complaint has been handled, the complainant may at any time, ask you to transfer the complaint record to the AMF
• Following the transfer, the AMF will examine the record and will, if it deems it appropriate, offer dispute resolution services
• For the complainant, the transfer of the complaint to the AMF does not interrupt the prescription period for civil remedies

To assist you in preparing these documents, see the sample Acknowledgment of receipt including notice (pdf - 30 KB)This link will open in a new windowUpdated on September 10, 2012Exemple: Acknowledgment of receipt.

You must agree to a request by a complainant to have the complaint record transferred to the AMF if the complainant is not satisfied with the final position or the way the complaint has been handled.

The complainant may make the request using the Form to Request the Transfer of a File to the AMF (pdf - 52 KB)This link will open in a new windowUpdated on April 5, 2017Form to request the transfer of a file to the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) or in any other manner.

The AMF will examine the record and, if necessary, ask you for more information or documents.

After examining the record, the AMF will, if it deems it appropriate, offer its dispute resolution services.

The way complaints are entered and reported is harmonized across the industry.

Between March 1 and May 1 of each year, you are required to submit a complaint report using the Complaint Report tool, which is accessible via AMF E-Services for businesses.

The period covered by each report is from January 1 to December 31 of the previous year.

Reporting date reminder

The AMF encourages administrative and regulatory streamlining. With this in mind, independent representatives and firms that, at any time during a reporting period, acted solely through one representative must submit a complaint report only in the following situations:

• They received one or more complaints during a reporting period, or
• Previously reported complaints were not resolved during the previous reporting period.

Such independent representatives and firms that do not submit a complaint report will be presumed not to have any complaints to report.