151-160 of 189 results
Act fast, act well: Federal Court decision reinforces the importance of robust compliance programs for banks and other financial services licensees
Chief Justice Allsop of the Federal Court recently imposed on a bank, by consent of ASIC and the bank, civil penalties totalling $10 million for unconscionable conduct in carrying out an inadequate customer remediation process. It highlights the importance of banks and other financial services licensees having in place robust compliance programs and taking prompt and comprehensive action where possible non-compliance is identified. ...
ASIC's Corporate Plan 2020-2024
ASIC's Corporate Plan sets out its strategic priorities and actions for the next four years, especially its approach to its supervisory, surveillance and enforcement functions, and how each of those may have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Superannuation trustees and 'efficiently, honestly and fairly'
The Federal Court has made declarations that two superannuation fund trustees contravened ss912A(1)(a) (efficient, honest and fair obligation) and 1041H (misleading or deceptive conduct) of the Corporations Act, and s12DA (misleading or deceptive conduct) of the ASIC Act. ...
ASIC issues hardship withdrawal relief to responsible entities
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASIC has provided relief reminiscent of the GFC to allow hardship withdrawals from frozen funds. The COVID-19 version of hardship-relief goes further than its GFC predecessor in many respects. We provide an overview of the issue. ...
'Winding back' responsible lending obligations
The Government announced a simplification to Australia's consumer credit regulatory regime, which has been widely reported as a 'wind back' or 'axing' of the responsible lending obligations (RLOs) under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) (Credit Act). Learn more from our experts. ...
Removal of exceptions to anti-hawking prohibition
In response to Royal Commission recommendations, amendments to remove exceptions to the existing hawking prohibition have been released for consultation. We analyse the changes, their effects and challenges. ...
The when and what of the new breach reporting regime
All signs point to the final tranche of the Hayne Royal Commission exposure draft Bills being introduced before the end of the year, and their focuses will include something that is a favourite topic here at Unravelled, and is of considerable interest to our clients – breach reporting. We explain the new regime's timing and effects. ...
Financial advice relief – all talk and no-action
We said at the outset of this pandemic that financial advice will play an important role in supporting members who are considering whether to access their super early. Alive to that, ASIC recently released a series of measures to facilitate access to financial advice ...
RG 272 – bringing order through product intervention
Following its consultation in June last year, ASIC has now published RG 272, setting out ASIC's approach to using its product intervention powers. In this update, we examine the scope of this power and the accompanying regulatory guidance. ...
Superannuation, funds and insurance sector reforms: the year ahead in 2020 and beyond
As the dust settles on a raft of COVID-19 related disruptions to various proposed legislative and regulatory reforms, the Allens team takes stock of the current regulatory reform proposals in the superannuation, funds and insurance sectors which have been mooted for the tail end of 2020 and early 2021. ...