There has been so much talk about blockchain and distributed ledger technology recently especially in financial services that you might be forgiven for thinking it might be more hype than substance But we think it could be very important technology ...

The Corporations Act 2001 Cth was amended in 2004 to include an additional obligation for Australian financial services licensees to have in place adequate arrangements for the management of conflicts of interest that may arise in relation to the activities undertaken by the licensees in the ...

As the dust settles following the recent federal election it is a good time to reflect on what we can expect from the re-elected Coalition Government for the financial services sector There are two main groups of policy proposals that are going to need to get through Parliament The first is the ...

Foreign financial services providers relying on passporting a foreign licence to provide their services in Australia will find their regulatory relief could be expiring in 2 years - and has become subject to a new condition - following ASICs actions to repeal the ASIC Class Orders which give effect ...

Exposure draft life insurance regulations were released yesterday They are a marked departure from the existing conflicted remuneration provisions Now a benefit can only be conflicted remuneration if it could reasonably be expected to influence financial product advice These regulations will create ...

Commercial trusts could not operate without limitation of liability clauses however getting a limitation of liability clause just right is very challenging ...

The Federal Attorney-Generals Department has released its draft Project Plan for the implementation of the wide-ranging recommendations arising from the recent statutory review of Australias anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime Partner Peter Haig Associate Andrew Shetliffe ...

The Bill to amend the conflicted remuneration provisions in the Corporations Act for life insurance has been introduced into Parliament a second time and draft regulations have been released for comment However we struggle to know how to describe them because the changes seem to have conflicting ...

For more than 150 years trustees have been able to obtain advice from courts on matters affecting the management or administration of trust property and on matters respecting the interpretation of trust deeds Trustees would usually only seek such advice however if they had doubts about a proposed ...

Stapled structures have been used as an investment platform in the property and infrastructure sectors for decades and more recently have been deployed into renewable energy agriculture and other areas Through the issue of its Taxpayer Alert on stapled structures on 31 January 2017 the ATO indicated ...