The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has chosen to example its successful legal pursuit of AMP Limited and the company’s lawyers, Clayton Utz, as an example of its enforcement success in the first six months of this year.
However, in releasing the ASIC Enforcement Update for the period to January to June, ASIC deputy chairman, Daniel Crennan QC acknowledged that the regulator was still yet to act on the 13 matters referred to it from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
He said ASIC’s Office of Enforcement was continuing to work on the matters “as well as a significant number of matters that were examined as case studies in the Royal Commission”.
“While we do not comment on actual or potential investigations, we are prioritising our work on these matters and a significant number of other investigations into Australia’s major financial services institutions,” Crennan said. “We will continue to provide public updates on our enforcement actions when appropriate.”
“As I have said publicly over the past year, ASIC has a clear resolve. The Office of Enforcement is ready to deliver on the public’s expectation to hold wrongdoers to account.”
The Enforcement Update revealed that in the six months to the end of June, ASIC had recorded 51 financial services related matters and that as of 1 July, had 17 criminal and 29 civil financial services-related matters underway.
The APRA data did not specify how many actions were specifically related to financial planning.
