TORONTO — Canada's most prominent banks and insurers say they are sticking with the virtual or hybrid annual general meetings they adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic for another year.

The group of 12 banks and insurers say they recently obtained a court order allowing them to hold the meetings in these formats again.

Though they acknowledge the COVID-19 situation has improved this year, they say they want to use virtual and hybrid meetings because the virus is so "unpredictable."

They add that using the formats will also allow them to respect protocols recommended by public health authorities.

The group, which includes Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank Group, Sun Life Financial Inc. and Manulife Financial Corp., were granted a similar order in March 2020, December 2020 and December 2021.

Rounding out the group are Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canadian Western Bank, Laurentian Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, National Bank, Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 8, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RY, TSX:TD, TSX:CM, TSX:BNS, TSX:BMO, TSX:NA, TSX:CWB, TSX:LB, TSX:SLF, TSX:MFC, TSX:GWO)

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