2.2 Confidentiality: (1) Securities legislation permits a company to delay disclosure of a material change and to keep it confidential temporarily where immediate release of the information would be unduly detrimental to the company’s interests.2 For example, immediate disclosure might interfere with a company’s pursuit of a specific objective or strategy, with ongoing negotiations, or with its ability to complete a transaction. If the harm to a company’s business from disclosing outweighs the general benefit to the market of immediate disclosure, withholding disclosure is justified. In such cases a company may withhold public disclosure, but it must make a confidential filing with the securities commission.3 Certain jurisdictions also require companies to renew the confidential filing every 10 days should they want to continue to keep the information confidential. (2) We discourage companies from delaying disclosure for a lengthy period of time as it becomes less likely that confidentiality can be maintained beyond the short term.

2.3 Maintaining Confidentiality: (1) Where disclosure of a material change is delayed, a company must maintain complete confidentiality. During the period before a material change is disclosed, market activity in the company’s securities should be carefully monitored. Any unusual market activity may mean that news of the matter has been leaked and that certain persons are taking advantage of it. If the confidential material change, or rumours about it, have leaked or appear to be impacting the share price, a company should take immediate steps to ensure that a full public announcement is made. This would include contacting the relevant exchange and asking that trading be halted

http://www.bcsc.bc.ca/uploadedFiles/NP51-201.pdf