Industry fund declares clean hands on investment switching
One of the industry superannuation funds referred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) over the investment switching at the height of the COVID-19 market volatility has claimed clean hands resulting from a solid Super Personal Trading Policy.
Non-Government schools fund, NGS Super had issued a statement that declared its “Personal Trading Policy prohibits any form of insider trading by directors, executives and staff and we are committed to ensuring this policy is prudently adhered to”.
“ln recent months, we took additional steps to proactively promote the policy to increase awareness of the requirements. The fund also increased monitoring and assessment of switching activity of directors, executives and staff, particularly in mid-March 2020 when it started to become apparent that a devaluation of unlisted assets of the fund would be required to ensure member equity. No breaches of policy were identified,” the NGS Super statement said.
“We’re confident that the implementation, monitoring and assessment requirements of the Personal Trading Policy have always been, and will continue to be, met.”
NGS Super issued the statement after ASIC told the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics that it would be investigating matters referred to it by the chairman of the committee, Victorian Liberal backbencher, Tim Wilson.
Wilson had directed questions on notice to a number of industry and retail superannuation funds about investment switching during the early days of COVID-19 market crisis and referred a number of those, including NGS Super, to ASIC.
Other funds mentioned by Wilson included Cbus, AustralianSuper and UniSuper.
Wilson asked similar questions of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) which said it would examine the cases referred by the committee chairman.
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