The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has announced that it will target greenwashing, predatory lending and misleading insurance during 2023.
The warning reflected ASIC’s continued focus on protecting consumers from financial harm, following the release of its recent enforcement and regulatory report.
Sarah Court, ASIC deputy chair, commented that ASIC’s strategic and enforcement priorities were reflected in the actions it had taken during the final quarter of 2022.
“In the final three months of last year we commenced a number of significant enforcement and regulatory actions to address misconduct, market integrity threats and consumer harms in sectors including financial services, retail and crypto-assets,” she said.
During the months from July to December 2022, ASIC:
- Laid 173 criminal charges;
- Imposed $76.3 million in civil penalties; and
- Commenced 62 investigations with another 103 investigations ongoing.
This brought the total to 312 criminal charges imposed in the 2022 calendar year, alongside $222.1 million in civil penalties imposed by the courts.
Court added: “This includes corporate governance and directors’ duties, product design and distribution, and misleading statements involving sustainable finance practices”.
Additionally, the regulator took its first action against greenwashing during October 2022. Three infringement notices were then issued to Vanguard for misleading sustainability-related statements.
During this year, ASIC would continue to focus on the following issues through enforcement activity:
- Sustainable finance practises and disclosure of climate risks;
- Financial scams;
- Cyber and operational resilience; and
- Investor harms involving cryptocurrency assets.
“We take our role to protect consumers and investors seriously and won’t hesitate to take action to protect consumers where we identify poor conduct,” Court stated.
She additionally recognised ASIC’s aim to provide “simple, effective and easy-to-access guidance” so those in the industry could sufficiently meet legal requirements.
Great to see that the compulsory adviser levy has been successful in obtaining ASIC and the government over $200 million. Will ASIC outline how much of these penalties actually applied to those advisers who pay the levy, or were they against product providers and unlicensed advisers. It is time for this rort to stop.