The current co-regulatory model for supervising Australia’s public companies is working well. The proposal that ASIC be given the power to issue fines for failures of listed entities to comply with the continuous disclosure requirements is unlikely to make a material contribution to improving...

The Final Report and recommendations of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, led by the Hon Kenneth Hayne AC QC, was published on 4 February 2019. The Commonwealth Government's response: highlighting the actions it will take in...

In ASIC v Rich Justice Austin provides the first comprehensive judicial analysis of the statutory business judgment defence in s 180(2). The judgment addresses important, mostly unanswered, questions for directors and officers around the use of the business judgment defence: What is a business...

Given the high, indeed almost aspirational expectations placed on directors of large Australian companies, it is becoming increasingly important for directors to identify potential sources of errors and implement mechanisms to overcome these errors.This article identifies potential sources of...

If the global credit collapse as 'a crisis is too important to waste', then 12 years is too long? The Government needs to have the courage to risk the consequence of a wide ranging inquiry and immediately issue wide ranging terms of reference for a “son of Wallis” to dovetail with...

In a more democratised equity ownership model, ought vote selling be outlawed on ‘public policy' grounds or would such a ban limit legitimate transactions. The paper suggests that there is no need to change the Australian legislative environment to accomodate some limited examples of aberrant...

This paper suggests that shareholder class actions founded on a failure of the issuer to comply with the continuous disclosure requirements impose significant and unwarranted costs on the market as a result of the material ‘leakage' they create in the circle of shareholder wealth. The problem...

We suggest that the Commission's recommendations can be made ‘organisation ready' if the ethical culture is developed in a way that is consistent with internationally recognized human rights norms. Human rights remove some of the subjective element from ethics and replace it with...