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 ...

A long-awaited change designed to reduce the compliance burden for security interests arising from short-term leases of serial numbered goods is one step closer to becoming law Partner Karla Fraser and Law Graduate Katharine Ward report ...

The Governments response to the FSIs superannuation recommendations is as with much of the rest of the responses somewhat safe and as a result arguably disappointing As with the Inquirys recommendations it shifts from the sublime to the ridiculous ndash on the one hand it deals with the really ...

In 2014 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission ASIC was chastened by the Senate Economics References Committee which wants ASIC to be more effective but encouraged by the Financial System Inquiry which wants ASIC to take on greater powers Meanwhile the Federal Government has reduced ...

The Financial System Inquirys final report was blunt in its assessment of the current state of Australias super system noting that the superannuation system is not operationally efficient due to a lack of strong price-based competition The Inquirys concern with super fees and costs led to one of the ...

The ASIC Enforcement Taskforces latest consultation paper pushes for a tougher penalty regime for corporate and financial sector misconduct which has been key focus of the Taskforces Terms of Reference and indeed of ASICs reform agenda for some time Partner Belinda Thompson Senior Associate Michela ...

While ASIC has published information on the issue of coins or tokens in initial coin offerings other regulators around the world have also been issuing guidance with some taking a much more restrictive approach Although Australia remains a relatively friendly regulatory environment for such ...

ASIC released its report Financial advice Fees for no service today It says that there has been a systemic failure by advice licensees within some of the major banks and AMP to provide ongoing advice in return for ongoing fees The report relates chiefly to arrangements between licensees and clients ...

APRA is seeking to improve the role of the Appointed Actuary in general and life insurance companies and has proposed some reforms in a discussion paper released earlier this year ...

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 ...