8.5.3 Questions from Investors

Investors may contact issuers directly from time to time with questions regarding the issuer’s finances or operations. Providing information to particular investors can, however, raise “selective disclosure” concerns. Fielding questions from investors is not prohibited, but it is a best practice for issuers to identify a single point person for responding to investor inquiries, to maintain consistency and to respond to inquiries with information that is already available to the general public to the extent possible. Under some circumstances, issuers must decline to provide an investor with helpful information because that information is not yet publicly available. Sometimes an investor inquiry will prompt a voluntary disclosure so that a question that identifies something material is shared with the market at large.