Juliette Overland
Our corporate regulator’s response
Recent events surrounding the impact of COVID-19, and the resulting effects on business, have been creating great uncertainty, with an appreciable effect on global securities markets. In response, the Australian corporate regulator, the Australian Investments and Securities Commission (ASIC) has announced its COVID-19 regulatory priorities.
ASIC has a very wide set of responsibilities and says it will focus on those areas where there is “risk of significant consumer harm, serious breaches of the law, risks to market integrity, and time-critical matters”. Furthermore, ASIC will suspend or defer non time-critical matters including industry consultation, regulatory reports and reviews.
ASIC is to be congratulated for its pragmatic approach in these difficult times, which will allow businesses to focus on their own responses to the many challenges now confronting them. While criminal activity and misconduct must never be tolerated, now is the time to appropriately enable business to address the issues which affect their key stakeholders, including not only their shareholders, but also their customers, clients and employees, as well as the wider community.
This is part of a series of insights related to Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impact on business.
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Juliette is the Professor of Corporate Law at Western Sydney University. Her research is focussed on corporate crime and corporate law, particularly the regulation of insider trading and misconduct within securities markets.
