Form F-9EF Files Dataset

The Form F-9EF Files Dataset is a closed historical archive of immediately-effective Securities Act registration statements filed on EDGAR by Canadian issuers under the U.S.-Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS). Each record is one complete EDGAR submission of Form F-9EF — the "EF" suffix designating registration statements that became effective automatically on filing under Rule 467(a), without staff review. The form was used by eligible Canadian issuers to register U.S. public offerings of nonconvertible investment-grade debt or preferred securities, and was rescinded effective December 31, 2012 in connection with Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act, which required the SEC to remove credit-rating eligibility criteria from Securities Act registration forms. The dataset's earliest sample is dated February 1, 2003, and coverage runs through the form's December 2012 rescission. Records are distributed as monthly ZIP containers with HTML, JSON, and TXT file content.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

Form F-9EF is the immediately-effective variant of Form F-9, the Securities Act of 1933 registration statement made available to eligible Canadian issuers under the Multijurisdictional Disclosure System regime adopted jointly by the SEC and the Canadian Securities Administrators in 1991. The form was used to register nonconvertible debt or preferred securities that carried an investment-grade rating from a nationally recognized statistical rating organization. The "EF" suffix designates the auto-effective filing path: the registration statement became effective automatically upon filing in reliance on Rule 467(a), without staff review and without a separate order or notice of effectiveness, predicated on the corresponding Canadian regulatory clearance of the offering documents. Because MJDS permits a Canadian issuer to satisfy U.S. registration largely by furnishing its home-jurisdiction prospectus, the contents of an F-9EF submission are oriented around incorporation of, and supplementation to, that Canadian disclosure record rather than an independent set of U.S.-style narrative disclosures.

The SEC rescinded Form F-9 effective December 31, 2012 in connection with rulemaking implementing Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Because F-9 eligibility was defined by reference to investment-grade ratings, the form could not be retrofitted and was eliminated. The dataset therefore covers a closed historical window, capturing F-9EF filings made on EDGAR from the earliest sample on February 1, 2003 through the form's rescission. Records are distributed as monthly ZIP containers organized as <year>/<year>-<month>.zip, each expanding into a <year>-<month>/ directory whose immediate children are per-accession folders. The file types present in the dataset are HTML (the actual filing content), JSON (the per-record metadata sidecar), and TXT (where the original EDGAR submission included plain-text documents).

Content Structure of a Single F-9EF Record

A single record in the Form F-9EF Files Dataset is one complete EDGAR submission of a Form F-9EF immediately-effective registration statement, materialized on disk as a self-contained accession-numbered folder. The folder name is the EDGAR accession number with dashes removed and zero-padded to 18 digits (for example, 000113031903000942 corresponds to accession 0001130319-03-000942). Inside the folder, a metadata.json sidecar describes the filing at the accession level, and a series of .htm files carry the registration statement and each separately filed exhibit. One record corresponds one-to-one with one F-9EF filing on EDGAR.

Each record is composed of two structural layers:

1. A machine-readable header layer in metadata.json, which captures the accession-level facts EDGAR records on the filing index — form type, accession number, filing timestamp, period of report, filer entities and their identifiers, and the document manifest enumerating every file in the original submission.
2. A document layer composed of one .htm per item in the EDGAR submission. Each .htm is not a bare HTML page; it is wrapped in the original EDGAR SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope, with <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, and <DESCRIPTION> tags identifying the role of the document, and a <TEXT> block carrying the actual HTML body. The first document, by <SEQUENCE>1, is the Form F-9EF registration statement itself; subsequent documents are exhibits filed alongside it (for example <TYPE>EX-2.1, <TYPE>EX-5.1).

Image assets referenced from the HTM bodies — typically issuer logos, scanned signatures, and figure graphics — are listed in the metadata manifest with <TYPE>GRAPHIC and their original documentUrls on www.sec.gov, but the binary assets themselves are excluded from the archived files. The textual record is otherwise complete.

metadata.json

The metadata sidecar is a single JSON object describing the filing at the accession level. The fields include:

• formType — fixed at "F-9EF" for this dataset.
• accessionNo — the canonical dashed EDGAR accession identifier.
• description — the long-form name of the form ("Registration of securities of certain investment grade debt or preferred securities of certain Canadian issuers, immediately effective.").
• filedAt — ISO-8601 timestamp with timezone offset for the moment of EDGAR acceptance.
• periodOfReport — the EDGAR-recorded period date associated with the submission.
• linkToFilingDetails, linkToTxt, linkToHtml — direct URLs to, respectively, the primary HTM document, the full SGML submission text, and the EDGAR filing index page.
• linkToXbrl — empty for F-9EF.
• documentFormatFiles — an array enumerating every document in the original EDGAR submission, including image files that are stripped from the ZIP. Each entry carries sequence, size (in bytes, serialized as a string), documentUrl, description, and type (such as F-9EF, EX-2.1, EX-5.1, or GRAPHIC). A trailing entry with empty sequence and type represents the complete-submission SGML text file.
• entities — an array of the parties associated with the filing. For F-9EF this is principally the Canadian filer, with fields such as companyName (annotated with the role, e.g. "NEXEN INC (Filer)"), cik, irsNo, fileNo (the Securities Act 333-series file number), filmNo, sic (industry classification combining numeric code and English description in a single string), stateOfIncorporation (using EDGAR two-character codes where Canadian provinces are encoded with a leading A, e.g. A0 for Alberta, A1 for British Columbia, A6 for Ontario, A8 for Quebec), act ("33" for Securities Act registrants), fiscalYearEnd (MMDD), type, and tickers.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — empty for F-9EF; the field exists for investment-company series-and-class data and does not apply to corporate debt registrations.
• dataFiles — empty.
• id — an opaque internal identifier for the record.

Primary registration statement (<TYPE>F-9EF, <SEQUENCE>1)

The first HTM in each record is the Form F-9EF registration statement proper. Inside the SGML wrapper, the HTML body follows the cover-page-and-undertakings structure prescribed by the form, and typically includes:

• The facing page identifying the SEC, the form designation, the registrant's exact legal name, its province or country of organization, the IRS Employer Identification Number (or its absence for foreign issuers without one), the principal executive offices, and the name and address of the U.S. agent for service of process.
• The "Calculation of Registration Fee" table listing each title of securities being registered, the amount registered, the proposed maximum offering price per unit and aggregate, and the registration fee paid.
• A statement of the approximate date of commencement of the proposed sale to the public and the box-check designations specifying the MJDS path and reliance on Rule 467(a) for immediate effectiveness.
• The investment-grade rating disclosure required for F-9 eligibility, identifying the rating agency or agencies and the rating assigned to the securities being registered.
• Cross-references to the Canadian short-form prospectus (whether base shelf, preliminary, or final) that constitutes the substantive disclosure document under MJDS, together with statements regarding incorporation by reference of that prospectus and of the registrant's Exchange Act reports.
• The MJDS-specific undertakings, including the indemnification undertaking acknowledging that the Commission's view is that indemnification of officers and directors against Securities Act liabilities is contrary to public policy.
• A signature block executed by authorized officers and a majority of the board of directors of the registrant, plus the signature of the U.S. authorized representative.

Under MJDS the Canadian prospectus is filed with Canadian regulators and incorporated into the U.S. record by reference; the F-9EF body cross-references but does not necessarily re-file it. Where filers do choose to reproduce the Canadian short-form prospectus on EDGAR, it appears as part of the submission rather than as a separately registered document.

Exhibits

Exhibits are filed as additional <DOCUMENT> blocks, each in its own HTM file. The exhibit <TYPE> codes follow Item 601-style conventions adapted to the F-9 exhibit table. Common F-9EF exhibits include:

• Counsel consents and legal opinions (e.g., EX-2.1), such as a consent of Canadian counsel referencing the firm's name in the registration statement and accompanying Canadian short-form base shelf prospectus.
• Independent auditors' consents (e.g., EX-5.1) from the registrant's accounting firm, consenting to the incorporation by reference of their audit report on the registrant's most recent annual financial statements (often financial statements included in the Canadian Annual Information Form or the issuer's Form 40-F).
• Trust indentures, forms of debt securities, and similar transaction documents where applicable to the offering being registered.
• Powers of attorney where signatures on the registration statement are executed by attorney-in-fact.

Each exhibit HTM carries the same SGML envelope as the primary document, with <TYPE> set to the exhibit code, <DESCRIPTION> carrying a human-readable label (e.g., "CONSENT OF BENNETT JONES"), and <TEXT> containing the HTML body of the exhibit.

Included content

A record contains:

• The full document set of the original EDGAR submission as accepted by EDGAR, in the textual formats in which it was filed (HTM with SGML wrappers).
• The accession-level metadata captured at the time of filing, including the full document manifest with size, sequence, type, description, and original SEC URL for every component, including images.
• All entity records EDGAR associates with the filing — principally the Canadian filer, including its CIK, file number, SIC code, IRS number, state/province code, fiscal year-end, and ticker symbols where applicable.

Excluded or separate content

A record does not contain:

• Image files (.gif, .jpg, and similar) referenced from the HTM bodies. These remain enumerated in metadata.json -> documentFormatFiles with <TYPE>GRAPHIC and their original www.sec.gov URLs, but the binary assets themselves are stripped from the archive.
• The Canadian short-form prospectus when it was filed only with Canadian regulators (e.g., on SEDAR) and not also on EDGAR. Under MJDS the U.S. registration statement may incorporate that Canadian prospectus by reference without including it in the submission.
• Subsequent filings related to the same offering. A later prospectus supplement, a Rule 424(b) prospectus, a Form 6-K, or a Form 40-F for the same issuer is a separate EDGAR submission with a distinct accession number and is, where in scope of other datasets, a separate record. The F-9EF record is bounded strictly by the contents of its single accession.
• Amendments. F-9 amendments are filed under separate form codes (such as F-9/A) at distinct accession numbers and are not nested inside the original F-9EF record.
• Structured-data exhibits. F-9EF was never within the scope of XBRL or iXBRL tagging requirements, and there is no associated structured-data submission to include.

Changes in required content or structure over time

Form F-9 and its EF variant remained largely stable in structure across the form's life on EDGAR. The substantive change relevant to the dataset is regulatory rather than internal: the SEC's adoption of final rules in 2011 implementing Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act removed credit-rating eligibility criteria from Securities Act registration forms, and as part of that rulemaking the Commission rescinded Form F-9 effective December 31, 2012. After that date no new F-9EF records exist; Canadian issuers wishing to register nonconvertible debt or preferred securities had to migrate to other forms (typically Form F-10 under MJDS or, for very large filers, Form F-3 if eligible). Within the live window of the form, the recurring structural elements — investment-grade rating disclosure, Calculation of Registration Fee table, MJDS box-check designations, Rule 467(a) reliance, the indemnification undertaking, and the U.S. authorized representative signature — were stable requirements. Exhibit-table conventions and consent practice tracked broader changes in EDGAR exhibit codes but did not materially alter the body of the form.

Changes in data format over time

All records in the dataset were filed during the HTML-on-EDGAR era. F-9EF submissions are uniformly filed as HTM documents inside SGML <DOCUMENT> envelopes, and the dataset retains that wrapping rather than presenting bare HTML. There is no ASCII-only stratum within the dataset window. Image files remain referenced in the metadata manifest but excluded from the archive across the entire dataset.

Interpretation notes

• The HTM files are not directly renderable as HTML without preprocessing. Each begins with EDGAR SGML header tags (<DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, <TEXT>) and ends with the matching closers. Consumers extracting body HTML must strip the outer SGML envelope; consumers analyzing component identity should read <TYPE> and <DESCRIPTION> from the wrapper rather than relying on filename heuristics, since EDGAR filenames are issuer-chosen and not standardized.
• Because images are excluded from the archive, any visual content present in the original filing — issuer logos, scanned officer signatures, figure graphics — will appear as broken references when an HTM body is rendered in isolation. The corresponding URLs in metadata.json -> documentFormatFiles can be used to retrieve the missing assets directly from EDGAR if needed.
• Numeric-looking metadata fields are sometimes serialized as strings: documentFormatFiles[*].size is a string of digits, and the trailing complete-submission entry uses an empty or whitespace sequence and an empty type. Downstream consumers should coerce these fields rather than assume native numeric typing.
• MJDS practice means that the substantive disclosure document for an offering — the Canadian short-form base shelf prospectus or its equivalent — is sometimes outside the EDGAR submission. The U.S. record may be comparatively thin (registration statement plus consents and undertakings) precisely because the substantive disclosure lives in the Canadian prospectus that is incorporated by reference. Reading an F-9EF record without consulting the incorporated Canadian documents will surface only the U.S. registration shell.
• The auto-effective nature of the form means there is no SEC review history, no comment letters, and no separate "effectiveness" filing in the dataset. Effectiveness occurs at filing under Rule 467(a), so the filedAt timestamp is also, in practical terms, the moment of effectiveness.
• Entity records use EDGAR-internal codes that require translation: stateOfIncorporation values beginning with A denote Canadian provinces (e.g., A0 Alberta, A1 British Columbia, A6 Ontario, A8 Quebec), act "33" denotes the Securities Act of 1933, and sic strings combine numeric code and English description in a single field.
• The entities array on F-9EF records is typically short, since the form is filed by a single Canadian issuer with no underwriters or selling shareholders attached at the registration-statement stage; co-registrants (such as guarantor subsidiaries) appear as additional entries when the offering structure includes them.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Each record is a Form F-9EF Securities Act registration statement filed on EDGAR by an eligible Canadian issuer registering a U.S. public offering of nonconvertible investment-grade debt or preferred securities under MJDS. The "EF" suffix indicates the registration statement became effective immediately on filing under Rule 467(a) of the Securities Act, without staff review or a declaration of effectiveness.

The filing population is narrow and gated by two layers: issuer eligibility and security eligibility.

Issuer eligibility (General Instruction I to Form F-9). The registrant had to be:

• Incorporated under the laws of Canada or a Canadian province or territory.
• A "foreign private issuer" under Securities Act Rule 405, with its principal place of business in Canada.
• Subject to, and current with, the continuous disclosure requirements of an eligible Canadian securities regulator (such as the Ontario Securities Commission, Autorite des marches financiers, or BCSC) for at least 36 months.
• In compliance with the public-float test or an alternative test for senior debt issuers, guarantor structures, or wholly-owned finance subsidiaries of an eligible Canadian parent.

In practice, filers were large Canadian operating companies, banks and other financial institutions, utilities and pipelines, crown or provincial issuers acting through finance vehicles, and Canadian-parent-guaranteed finance subsidiaries.

Security eligibility. The registered securities had to be:

• Nonconvertible debt or nonconvertible preferred securities (with limited carve-outs in the General Instructions for delayed or contingent conversion features).
• Rated investment grade by at least one NRSRO at the time of filing.

When the record is created or required

Form F-9EF is transactional and offering-driven, not periodic. A filing is triggered when an MJDS-eligible Canadian issuer launches a qualifying U.S. registered public offering of nonconvertible investment-grade debt or preferred securities. Typical triggers:

• A primary offering of investment-grade notes, debentures, or medium-term notes into the U.S. market.
• A guaranteed debt offering by a Canadian finance subsidiary, with a full and unconditional guarantee from an MJDS-eligible parent or affiliate.
• A nonconvertible investment-grade preferred share offering.

Because Rule 467(a) makes the registration statement effective on filing, there is no waiting period, no staff review cycle, and no formal effectiveness order. The issuer (or its U.S. counsel and filing agent) submits the F-9EF on EDGAR contemporaneously with, or just before, the U.S. launch, allowing pricing and closing on a Canadian-style timetable. The U.S. prospectus typically wraps the Canadian prospectus prepared under Canadian disclosure standards. Each accession is the U.S. leg of an offering whose primary disclosure document was cleared in Canada.

There is no recurring deadline. The only timing constraint is that the registration statement must be on file and effective before any U.S. sales of the registered securities. Post-effective amendments and prospectus supplements follow ordinary Securities Act mechanics; amendments appear under separate form types (e.g., F-9/A). The form was rescinded effective December 31, 2012, after Section 939A of Dodd-Frank required the SEC to remove credit-rating-based eligibility criteria from its rules. Because Form F-9's scope rested entirely on the investment-grade rating screen, eliminating that criterion left the form without a substantive use case.

Important distinctions

• Filer vs. guarantor. In guaranteed structures, the EDGAR registrant is often a Canadian finance subsidiary, while the credit and the investment-grade rating attach to the parent guarantor. Both entities appear on the cover page, and both must independently satisfy MJDS eligibility.
• F-9 vs. F-9EF. Non-immediately-effective Form F-9 filings appear on EDGAR under form type "F-9," not "F-9EF." This dataset captures only the Rule 467(a) auto-effective variant. Amendments use separate form types.
• Other MJDS forms. Canadian issuers offering equity, convertible securities, or below-investment-grade debt used Form F-10 (general offerings), Form F-7 (rights offerings), or Form F-8/Form F-80 (exchange offers and business combinations). After December 31, 2012, virtually all offerings that would have used F-9/F-9EF migrated to Form F-10.
• Non-Canadian foreign private issuers. Issuers domiciled outside Canada cannot use any MJDS form and must register U.S. offerings on Form F-1, F-3, or Form F-4, regardless of whether the security would otherwise be nonconvertible investment-grade.
• U.S. domestic issuers. Register investment-grade debt on Form S-1 or Form S-3 (including automatic shelf treatment for WKSIs), never on an F-series form.
• Filer of record vs. parties referenced. Only the Canadian issuer (or its finance subsidiary) is the filer. Credit rating agencies, Canadian securities regulators, underwriters, auditors, and other experts are referenced or provide exhibit consents, but they do not file the F-9EF.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form F-9EF sits at the intersection of three SEC filing corners: the MJDS regime for Canadian issuers, the auto-effective registration regime under Rule 467(a), and the rescinded universe of forms whose eligibility hinged on investment-grade credit ratings. The dataset is closed and finite, which sharpens its boundaries against the much broader datasets it is most often compared to.

Form F-9 (the parent form, normal-effectiveness variant)

F-9 was the underlying MJDS registration form for nonconvertible investment-grade debt and preferred securities of eligible Canadian issuers. The "EF" suffix marks the auto-effective route under Rule 467(a): effectiveness on filing, with no staff review or declaration. A bare F-9 filing followed the reviewed path. Disclosure substance is essentially identical (Canadian prospectus, indemnification undertaking, expert consents, investment-grade rating support); only the timing and review posture diverge. Both forms were rescinded effective December 31, 2012.

Form F-10 (MJDS, equity and non-investment-grade securities)

F-10 is the broader MJDS registration form, used by eligible Canadian issuers for equity and non-investment-grade debt, and remains active. It shares the MJDS architecture and Canadian-prospectus mechanics with F-9EF but covers different securities, carries no investment-grade rating qualifier, and is SEC-reviewed rather than auto-effective. F-10 is the principal post-2012 destination for Canadian investment-grade debt issuers who previously used F-9/F-9EF.

Forms F-7, F-8, and F-80 (other MJDS forms)

F-7 covers MJDS rights offerings; F-8 and F-80 cover MJDS exchange offers and business combinations. They share the MJDS regulatory architecture with F-9EF but cover entirely different transaction types and are not substitutes in any debt or preferred-capital research workflow. They matter only when the research question concerns the MJDS regime as a whole.

Form F-3 (non-MJDS short-form foreign issuer registration)

F-3 is the short-form, incorporation-by-reference Securities Act registration for seasoned foreign private issuers operating outside MJDS. It overlaps with F-9EF in that both serve seasoned non-U.S. issuers registering debt under streamlined, shelf-friendly mechanics, but F-3 requires SEC-standard disclosure rather than incorporation of a Canadian prospectus, and it is reviewed, not auto-effective. After F-9EF rescission, some Canadian investment-grade debt issuers migrated to F-3 instead of F-10.

Form 424B prospectuses (post-effective takedown filings)

Form 424B and its variants are the prospectus filings made after effectiveness, capturing pricing supplements and shelf takedown terms. F-9EF is the registration statement; 424B records the actual sales off it. The two are sequential rather than alternative, and 424B filings are vastly more numerous and pricing-oriented. Researchers needing both the shelf and the takedown should combine the datasets.

Forms that are not close substitutes

Forms F-1 and F-4 (long-form foreign issuer registration and foreign business combinations) and the domestic S-1/S-3 family share only the broadest registration-statement context with F-9EF. They differ in filer population, disclosure regime, and review mechanics. S-3 is sometimes raised as a "functional analogue" for U.S. investment-grade shelf issuance, but the comparison is conceptual, not operational.

Why F-9EF was rescinded

The SEC rescinded F-9 and F-9EF effective December 31, 2012 under Section 939A of Dodd-Frank, which required removing credit-rating references from federal regulations. Because eligibility for both forms was tied directly to investment-grade ratings, the SEC chose rescission over redesign. Continuous Canadian investment-grade debt registration activity after 2012 must be sourced from F-10 or F-3 datasets, not from F-9EF.

Boundary summary

F-9EF is distinct on four dimensions that no neighboring dataset combines: it is MJDS-specific (unlike F-1/F-3/F-4), auto-effective at filing (unlike F-9, F-10, and most F-series forms), restricted to nonconvertible investment-grade debt and preferred securities (unlike F-10), and closed at the December 2012 rescission. Its value is historical: it preserves the complete population of auto-effective MJDS investment-grade registrations during the window when that mechanism existed, supporting studies of MJDS adoption, credit-rating-based eligibility, the Section 939A transition, and early-2000s cross-border debt registration patterns.

Who Uses This Dataset

The audience is narrow and historical: professionals who need archival, comparative, or regulatory grounding on how investment-grade Canadian debt was registered in the U.S. during the rating-criteria era.

Cross-border securities counsel

Lawyers advising Canadian issuers, U.S. underwriters, and indenture trustees on MJDS debt offerings use the filings as a precedent library. They mine the issuer blocks, securities descriptions, indemnification undertakings, auditor consents, and powers of attorney to draft opinion letters, build disclosure schedules, and explain how older shelf debt was structured before the migration to F-10 or F-3.

Debt capital markets bankers

DCM teams structuring MJDS-eligible Canadian issuance review the rating-eligibility statements, use-of-proceeds language, maturity and covenant summaries, and guarantee structures to benchmark historical deal conventions. The dataset informs term-sheet drafting and timing discussions when issuers now weigh F-10, F-3, or Rule 144A alternatives.

Fixed-income credit analysts

Analysts covering long-dated Canadian corporate and utility bonds still outstanding from the F-9EF era use the dataset to recover the original registration record. The security description, ranking, indenture references, guarantor disclosure, and incorporated Canadian prospectus support recovery analysis, indenture cross-checks, and historical spread or default studies.

MJDS migration counsel and corporate secretaries

In-house attorneys and outside counsel transitioning issuers from F-9EF to F-10 or F-3 map the old exhibit lists and incorporation-by-reference patterns to current form requirements. Output: migration checklists, disclosure-control updates, and refreshed auditor and trustee consents under the successor form.

Regulatory historians and academic researchers

Researchers studying Dodd-Frank Section 939A and the removal of rating references from federal rules use the dataset as a primary corpus for one concrete unwound regime. The rating-eligibility representations, auto-effectiveness mechanism, filing cadence, and consents support law review articles, working papers, and comparative MJDS studies.

Compliance and regtech engineering

Teams maintaining internal SEC form taxonomies and EDGAR mirrors consume the metadata, accession numbers, and document-level structure to confirm form-type coverage, validate parsers that handle rescinded forms, and log the December 2012 rescission in regulatory-change records.

Forensic accountants and litigation support

Experts working on disputes touching F-9EF-era securities pull the contemporaneous registration record for damages models and expert reports. Auditor consents, the financial information incorporated from the Canadian prospectus, and dated issuer representations are the highest-value fields.

LLM and RAG developers

Teams building retrieval systems over SEC form types use the dataset as a small, closed slice for completeness testing of form-type classifiers, ingestion pipelines, and citation systems that must handle low-volume historical forms.

Specific Use Cases

The use cases below reflect the operational workflows the Form F-9EF Files Dataset actually supports, given its closed coverage of auto-effective MJDS registrations filed between February 2003 and December 2012.

Building an MJDS debt-precedent library for opinion letters

Cross-border counsel drafting Canadian counsel opinions and U.S. enforceability opinions for current F-10 or F-3 debt offerings pull the EX-2.1 consent and opinion exhibits and the indemnification undertaking text from each F-9EF record. Because the SGML <TYPE> and <DESCRIPTION> tags identify each exhibit's role unambiguously, the exhibit set can be loaded into a precedent system and queried by counsel firm, issuer, or province of incorporation to support drafting and negotiation.

Reconstructing the registration record for legacy investment-grade Canadian bonds

Fixed-income analysts and workout teams covering long-dated Canadian corporate or utility bonds still outstanding from the 2003-2012 window use the primary <TYPE>F-9EF document plus its Calculation of Registration Fee table to recover the original registered amount, title of securities, rating disclosure, and indenture cross-references. This supports recovery analysis, indenture verification, and reconstruction of the as-filed offering terms when only the trading CUSIP is known.

Migrating issuers from F-9EF to F-10 or F-3

In-house and outside counsel handling form migration use the documentFormatFiles manifest in metadata.json to enumerate the historical exhibit set for a given issuer (consents, powers of attorney, trust indentures, guarantor signatures) and map each entry to its successor-form analogue. The output is a per-issuer migration checklist and a list of consents that must be refreshed under the new form.

Empirical studies of the Section 939A rating-criteria transition

Regulatory historians and law-and-finance researchers use the closed F-9EF population to study the auto-effective MJDS regime end-to-end. The filedAt timestamps, rating-eligibility statements in the registration body, and entities.cik values support filing-cadence analysis, identification of which Canadian issuers used the auto-effective path, and tracking of where those issuers re-registered after the December 31, 2012 rescission.

Form-type coverage testing for EDGAR ingestion pipelines

Regtech and LLM-RAG engineering teams use the dataset as a small, deterministic test slice for parsers that must handle rescinded and low-volume forms. The SGML-wrapped HTM bodies, string-typed size fields, empty linkToXbrl and seriesAndClassesContractsInformation, and EDGAR province codes (e.g. A0, A1, A6, A8) exercise edge cases that uniform high-volume datasets do not, and the small record count makes regression runs cheap.

Cross-referencing F-9EF shelves with their 424B takedowns

Researchers studying actual issuance activity off MJDS shelves join F-9EF records to their downstream Rule 424(b) prospectus filings using the issuer cik and Securities Act fileNo (333-series) from metadata.json. The combined view reconstructs each shelf takedown's registered capacity against the takedowns priced against it, which is unavailable from either dataset alone.

Dataset Access

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f9ef-files.json Returns dataset metadata and the list of available container files. The response includes the dataset name, description, last update timestamp, earliest sample date (2003-02-01), form types covered (F-9EF), container format (ZIP), file types (HTML, JSON, TXT), the full archive download URL, and per-container details (key, size, records, updated timestamp, and download URL). Use this endpoint to monitor which containers were refreshed in the most recent run and decide which ones to download incrementally. This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6a93-93ae-6c6f0f5ecf21",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f9ef-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form F-9EF Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T09:02:59.797Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "2003-02-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 7,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 147246,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["F-9EF"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

          11
            "fileTypes": ["HTML", "JSON", "TXT"],
        

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f9ef-files/2012/2012-12.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2012/2012-12.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 21034,
        

          17
                "records": 1,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T09:02:59.797Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f9ef-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY Downloads the complete dataset as a single ZIP archive containing all monthly containers from February 2003 through December 2012. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f9ef-files/2012/2012-12.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY Downloads one individual monthly container instead of the full archive. Use the containers[].downloadUrl values from the index API to target specific months. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form F-9EF, the immediately-effective variant of Form F-9 used by eligible Canadian issuers to register U.S. public offerings of nonconvertible investment-grade debt or preferred securities under the U.S.-Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System. The "EF" suffix designates registration statements that became effective automatically on filing under Rule 467(a), without SEC staff review.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record is one complete EDGAR submission of a Form F-9EF registration statement, materialized as a self-contained accession-numbered folder. The folder contains a metadata.json sidecar describing the filing at the accession level and a series of .htm files carrying the registration statement and each separately filed exhibit, each wrapped in its original EDGAR SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope.

Who is required to file Form F-9EF?

The filer is an eligible Canadian issuer — incorporated in Canada or a Canadian province, qualifying as a foreign private issuer, current with eligible Canadian continuous-disclosure requirements for at least 36 months, and meeting the public-float or alternative test — registering nonconvertible debt or preferred securities rated investment grade by an NRSRO. In guaranteed structures, the registrant is often a Canadian finance subsidiary backed by a full and unconditional parent guarantee.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The earliest sample date is February 1, 2003, and coverage runs through the rescission of Form F-9 effective December 31, 2012. The dataset is closed: no new F-9EF records exist after that date, because the SEC rescinded the form under Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act, which required removing credit-rating eligibility criteria from Securities Act registration forms.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP containers organized as <year>/<year>-<month>.zip, each expanding into a <year>-<month>/ directory of per-accession folders. File types inside the archive are HTML (the actual filing content, wrapped in EDGAR SGML <DOCUMENT> envelopes), JSON (the per-record metadata sidecar), and TXT (where the original EDGAR submission included plain-text documents). Image files referenced by the HTM bodies are excluded from the archive but remain enumerated in the metadata manifest with their original SEC URLs.

How does this dataset differ from Form F-10 filings?

Form F-10 is the broader, still-active MJDS registration form, used by eligible Canadian issuers for equity and non-investment-grade debt, while F-9EF was restricted to nonconvertible investment-grade debt and preferred securities. F-10 is SEC-reviewed; F-9EF was auto-effective on filing under Rule 467(a). After the December 31, 2012 rescission, virtually all offerings that would have used F-9 or F-9EF migrated to F-10.

Are amendments to Form F-9EF included in this dataset?

No. F-9 amendments are filed under separate form codes such as F-9/A at distinct EDGAR accession numbers and are not nested inside the original F-9EF record. Each F-9EF record is bounded strictly by the contents of its single accession; subsequent prospectus supplements, Rule 424(b) prospectuses, Form 6-K reports, or Form 40-F filings for the same issuer are separate EDGAR submissions and, where in scope, belong to other datasets.