The recent case of ASIC v NSG Services Pty Ltd considers the FoFA best interests and appropriate advice provisions, as well as obligations of licensees. While the facts of the case provide an extreme example of how advisers and licensees can fail to comply with these duties, it also provides some us ...

Has talk of a royal commission turned the ASIC Capability Review into an unlikely catalyst for an enhanced enforcement agenda With Labor pushing hard for a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry and an election looming the Government moved swiftly to announce broad reform ...

In his report earlier this year on retail life insurance advice John Trowbridge recommended that every advice licensee include at least half of the 13 relevant life insurers on its approved product list The Assistant Treasurer has since indicated the Government may consider measures to widen APLs by ...

A lot has happened since our most recent update The Royal Commission has published the submissions received from ASIC and industry participants on policy questions posed by Counsel Assisting at the end of the financial advice hearings And the small business lending hearings have been held ...

Exposure draft life insurance regulations were released yesterday They are a marked departure from the existing conflicted remuneration provisions Now a benefit can only be conflicted remuneration if it could reasonably be expected to influence financial product advice These regulations will create ...

The new Life Insurance Code of Practice has much to recommend it The paragraphs concerning policy design are a case in point But is the Code indeed just a code or does it purport to go further ...

Class action risk is changing A new wave of entrepreneurialism by plaintiff lawyers and litigation funders has substantially changed class action dynamics in recent times The 25th anniversary of the class action regime is a good opportunity to reflect on whether in the light of those and other ...

In the Radio Rentals Class Action, the Federal Court of Australia has ordered - over the objection of an Insurer - that a respondent disclose its insurance policies to the applicant. ...

IP disputes can be costly. One way firms can manage this risk is to obtain IP insurance. Once regarded as too expensive to work, recent developments in the market suggest that, for smaller businesses in particular, protection may now be more affordable. ...

Regulators particularly in the UK and Australia are increasingly interested in corporate culture in the financial services industry its impact on the integrity of the system and what the regulators are doing to try to entrench a corporate culture that works for the benefit of consumers and investors ...