The Government has recently made changes to superannuation law that helps clear the way for trustees of regulated superannuation funds to charge fund assets in order to enter into a broad range of exchange-traded and Over-The-Counter derivative transactions The changes are intended to make it easier ...

Our class actions team recently published our Class Action Risk 2016 report The objective of the report is to look behind the headlines and hype that often surrounds class actions to provide a more holistic and objective assessment of class action risk for our clients This is particularly important ...

The new Life Insurance Code of Practice has much to recommend it The paragraphs concerning policy design are a case in point But is the Code indeed just a code or does it purport to go further ...

New South Wales Court of Appeal case Arab Bank Australia v Sayde Developments considered the application of penalties doctrine to default interest rate provisions in load agreements post the high court's libera approach to the doctrine in Paciocco v ANZ. ...

With the release of an ASFA Best Practice Paper on insourcing investment management we look at some of the challenges and opportunities for in-house legal teams that come with the seemingly inexorable move in the superannuation industry towards insourcing investment management functions ...

The financial services sector has been under scrutiny for some time with many different voices clamouring for further regulation or inquiries in a sector that is already highly regulated The recent Federal Budget included a number of measures focused on the state of competition in the financial ...

As of 1 September 2017 merchants will be prohibited from charging excessive payment surcharges for certain payment methods Under the new rules businesses can only pass on to customers what it costs them to process a payment The Allens Competition team have put together a brief overview of the ...

ASIC has released draft updates to four existing Regulatory Guides and drafts of two new Regulatory Guides for managed investment schemes corporate collective investment vehicles and passport funds and announced a consultation period which will run until 8 December Partners Marc Kemp and Penny ...

There has been a great deal of attention given to the meanings of financial product advice and personal advice in the Corporations Act and many of us are eagerly waiting to see what Justice Gleeson will say about the topic in the case ASIC has brought against the BT trustees. ...

Last month we discussed the carrot in the UK Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards - how the regulators are making sure remuneration for bank staff encourages prudent risk behaviour This month we are looking at the stick - how the UK is strengthening regulators enforcement armoury to enable ...