The High Court's first decision on the financial assistance prohibition in section 260A of the Corporations Act supports a conservative approach to the prohibition, and in particular highlights the danger of 'taking a view' on the no material prejudice exception. ...

The Australian Law Reform Commission released for consultation today a set of proposals aimed at overhauling the federal corporate criminal responsibility regime. This comes in the wake of criticisms that the current system is ineffective in preventing, deterring and prosecuting serious corporate crime. Whilst the reforms offer a clearer, consistent and more rational framework for addressing corporate misconduct in Australia, some elements (such as the adoption of a general 'associate' model for criminal attribution) will no doubt raise concern given their capacity to significantly extend corporate liability. We examine some of the key proposals and their likely impact. Partner Christopher Kerrigan and Senior Overseas Practitioner Cindy McNair report. ...

ASIC has released its first report focusing on director and officer oversight of non-financial risk in seven large financial services companies (the First Report). While the report focuses on financial services companies, ASIC points out expressly that all companies, regardless of sector, should read and engage with the findings of this report. ...

The Australian Government has tabled the Crimes Amendment (Combatting Corporate Crime) Bill 2019 (the 2019 Bill) in the Senate, and the Attorney-General's Department has released Draft Guidance on the steps a body corporate can take to prevent an associate from bribing foreign public officials for public consultation (the Draft Guidance). Like the 2017 version of the Bill that lapsed earlier this year (the 2017 Bill), if passed, the 2019 Bill will strengthen Australia's foreign bribery laws, including by introducing a new corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery by an associate, and will introduce a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) scheme for resolving serious corporate criminal matters. Partner Rachel Nicolson, Senior Associate Andrew Wilcock and Associate Lewis Winter report on the key differences between the 2017 and 2019 Bills, and the content of the Draft Guidance. ...

Australia's modern slavery reporting regime was introduced one year ago, and 2020 will see the first set of modern slavery statements published by reporting entities. ...

The Federal Government has taken the first step towards achieving its announced intention of abolishing the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and transferring some of its functions to the Australian Taxation Office and the yet-to-be-established National Centre for Excellence ...

In a recent decision the New South Wales Supreme Court held that a sufficiently significant failure to meet budget expectations could constitute a material adverse change and upheld the lenders right to serve a default notice and accelerate repayment on this basis Partner Diccon Loxton and Lawyer ...

After talks of introducing a special tax regime for employee options in start-ups, the Federal Government has reverted back to the global norm of employee options granted by all companies generally being taxed on exercise ...

FTSE 100 companies have consulted far more widely with their shareholders on board pay and there have been far fewer shareholder revolts on pay as a result These are among the key findings of a Linklaters report analysing how FTSE 100 companies - throughout the 2014 AGM season - have reacted to the ...

Senators Jacqui Lambie and Ricky Muir this morning joined a group of cross-bench Senators in announcing that they would vote with Labor and the Greens to disallow the Governments FoFA regulations made in June this year - the Corporations Amendment Streamlining Future of Financial Advice Regulation ...