The Australian Financial Complaints Authority AFCA the new one-stop-shop for resolving financial complaints has had a very busy first six months of operation ...

The hearings in the Financial Services Royal Commission have been compulsory viewing not only for financial services industry participants and their regulators and professional service providers The hearings have exposed wide-ranging actual or alleged wrongful conduct that has captured the attention ...

In response to concerns about inconsistencies across various state-based jurisdictions and following a public consultation process the Standing Council on Law and Justice has released revised draft model legislation to reform Australias proportionate liability laws Partner Andrea Martignoni and ...

Although the Commissioner says that the Royal Commission is part of the executive and not the judiciary and that he is therefore not able to make any findings of law he comes pretty close in his views in response to Round 2 And in some important respects those views do not correspond with ...

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 ...

A recent Victorian Supreme Court decision has resolved a disputed construction of a major shareholder exclusion in a DO policy in the insurers favour after considering the broad commercial purpose of these provisions Partner Andrew Maher and Law Graduate Shelley Drenth report ...

Earlier today ASIC released an updated version of Regulatory Guide 246 concerning conflicted remuneration and other banned benefits such as volume-based shelf-space fees The changes are largely to address the life insurance remuneration reforms which take effect on 1 January 2018 But there are other ...

The Productivity Commissions draft report on competition in the financial system released earlier in February makes 25 draft recommendations a key focus of which are reforms to the regulatory system ...

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 Corporations Act 2001 Cth was amended in 2004 to include an additional obligation for Australian financial services licensees to have in place adequate arrangements for the management of conflicts of interest that may arise in relation to the activities undertaken by the licensees in the ...