corporations act

Financial planning

The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority has sought to put flesh on the bones of its new regime by releasing the relevant provider degrees, qualifications and...

Policy & Regulation

UBS Securities hit with $120,000 penalty

UBS Securities has been slapped with a $120,000 penalty by the regulator’s Markets Disciplinary Panel after it had reasonable grounds to believe that UBS contravened mark...

Financial planning

FASEA delivers some key concessions

The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority has delivered some key concessions within its revised Standards Blueprint....

Policy & Regulation

Govt to double employee share scheme limit

The Federal Government is proposing to increase the value limit of products in employee share schemes that can be offered in a 12-month period from $5,000 to $10,000 per ...

Financial planning

Planners should be answerable on products, says ISA

Industry Super Australia has objected to exempting personal financial advice from product design and distribution obligations, arguing planners need to be held responsibl...

Policy & Regulation

ASIC wants product sales training powers

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is arguing that giving it product sales training intervention powers may reduce the need for it to take extreme actio...

Financial planning

Corporations Act delegitimises planners

The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority has been told the Corporations Act actually delegitimises planners because it fails to appropriately separate them fr...

Financial planning

Three strikes and you’re out: FASEA’s exam

The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority has released proposed guidance on the compulsory Financial Adviser Examination, amid cries from the industry that mor...

Policy & Regulation

Government boosts penalties for misconduct

The Turnbull Government will strengthen criminal and civil penalties for corporate and financial misdeeds, following revelations of staggering misconduct in this week’s R...

Financial planning

Call to extend best interests to credit products

Consumer group Choice has called for an extension of the client best interests duty to advice provided around credit products....

Policy & Regulation

Law firm calls for control test to be restricted

The Fold Legal has proposed that the definition of control under the Corporations Act be restricted, despite an Australian Securities and Investments Commission taskforce...

Financial planning

ASIC confirms ‘independence’ terminology use

ASIC has confirmed restricted use of the term ‘independently-owned’ and ‘non-aligned’ in its updated Regulatory Guidance 175....

Accounting

CPA Australia blow-up cited as evidence for Corporations Act amendments

A Senate inquiry has been told that access to CPA Australia members’ e-mail addresses may have more quickly brought events to a head within the big accounting organisatio...

Financial planning

ASIC bans two Victorian men for Corporations Act breach

Stuart Arnold-Levy and David Heycock have been banned from providing financial services after an ASIC investigation....

Editorial

Objectively winding back the ‘significance test’

Mike Taylor writes that when the Government introduced the ‘significance test’ to the AFSL breach reporting regime in 2003 it was seen as sensible moderation but all that...