The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has granted relief to assist responsible entities of registered schemes to make changes to their constitutions to qualify for the new attribution managed investment trust regime without holding a members’ meeting. In addition, and in response to submissions from various industry bodies, the Australian Taxation Office has confirmed the deadline by which amendments need to be made for it to treat a trust as having qualified as an AMIT for any part of the income year commencing 1 July 2016. Partner Marc Kemp, Senior Tax Counsel Judith Taylor and Senior Overseas Practitioner James Kanabar review the key elements.

A recent Federal Court appellate decision highlights the fundamental tension in the Corporations Act between shareholders’ power to propose resolutions at members’ meetings and the proposition that a company is to be managed by its Board of directors.

Foreign financial services providers relying on passporting a foreign licence to provide their services in Australia will find their regulatory relief could be expiring in 2 years – and has become subject to a new condition – following ASIC’s actions to repeal the ASIC Class Orders which give effect to Australia’s passporting relief regime.

ASIC issued Regulatory Guide 256: Client review and remediation conducted by advice licensees late last week. In short, RG 256 says an Australian financial services licensee’s duty to provide financial services ‘efficiently, honestly and fairly’ means they have to take responsibility for the consequences of things going wrong. When what has gone wrong amounts to a systemic error relating to advice provided to retail clients, taking responsibility means a review and remediation conducted in a ‘comprehensive, timely, fair and transparent’ manner. Partners Michelle Levy and Malcolm Stephens and Associate Jonathan Gardner report.

The main Prime Trust appeal judgement is relatively well known, but a trust’s responsible entities and their officers should look at what the appeal court had to say on other related matters.

A director of a bank, life company or general insurer who read APRA’s recent information paper on risk culture could be excused for indulging in a wry smile. Since mid-2015 he or she has been subject to legislative obligations concerning risk culture. However, the information paper suggests that APRA is still working out what risk culture is and how to assess it.

The ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce members and terms of reference have been announced. The terms of reference are very broad and come as no surprise, with an emphasis on evaluating the adequacy of ASIC’s enforcement toolkit. We analyse the key themes that are likely to emerge.

With the release of an ASFA Best Practice Paper on insourcing investment management, we look at some of the challenges and opportunities for in-house legal teams that come with the seemingly inexorable move in the superannuation industry towards insourcing investment management functions.

The Federal Attorney-General’s Department has released its draft Project Plan for the implementation of the wide-ranging recommendations arising from the recent statutory review of Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime. Partner Peter Haig, Associate Andrew Shetliffe and Lawyer Russ Marshall report.

Late last year, APRA released the implementation schedule for its long-awaited Prudential Standard CPS 226 Margining and risk mitigation for non-centrally cleared derivatives.

For more than 150 years trustees have been able to obtain advice from courts on matters affecting the management or administration of trust property and on matters respecting the interpretation of trust deeds. Trustees would usually only seek such advice, however, if they had doubts about a proposed course of action.

Legislation to implement a diverted profits tax has passed the Federal Parliament. From 1 July 2017, the tax may potentially apply to the diversion of profits offshore through arrangements between related parties. Targeted at large multinational groups, the diverted profits tax is a fusion of anti-avoidance and transfer pricing rules. Partner Toby Knight and Senior Associate Scott Lang discuss the final form of the legislation and the steps multinational groups should take to prepare for its implementation.

It is difficult to describe the interim recommendations of the Expert Panel reviewing the ‘financial system external dispute resolution and complaints framework’ as anything other than odd.

Significant changes to Australia’s foreign investment regime came into effect on 1 July 2017, intended to address concerns regarding this regime raised since its introduction in December 2015. The amendments reduce the regulatory burden in a number of key ways and will impact a range of foreign investors in Australia. Partner Wendy Rae and Senior Associate Nick Kefalianos report on how these significant changes will affect you.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore recently sought public consultation on the features of its proposed new vehicle for collective investment, the Singapore Variable Capital Company. Partners Marc Kemp and Charles Armitage, and Senior Overseas Practitioner James Kanabar review the key elements of the new vehicle and consider the lessons which might be gleaned in relation to the introduction of a new Australian corporate vehicle for collective investment, announced by the Federal Government as part of the 2016-17 budget and scheduled (perhaps somewhat optimistically) to be introduced by 1 July.

The Federal Government today released exposure draft legislation for the new corporate collective investment vehicle, one of the two forms of collective investment vehicle that it pledged to develop as part of the 2016-2017 budget. Partners Marc Kemp and Charles Armitage and Senior Overseas Practitioner James Kanabar summarise the key features of the proposed CCIV, and compare and contrast them to those of equivalent overseas vehicles.

The first half of 2017 has been one of the most active buy out periods for private equity in Australia since the financial crisis. With fundraising conditions remaining positive, plenty of committed capital needing to be invested and the announcement of a number of large and high profile transactions involving financial sponsors, we believe that PE activity will remain robust for the remainder of the year.

The Federal Court’s decision about the proposed Tabcorp/Tatts merger has provided significant clarification about the public benefit test for authorisations. This is timely in light of the legislation before the Senate that proposes to combine the Tribunal authorisation process with the formal ACCC merger clearance process. Partner Jacqueline Downes and Lawyer Hanna Kaci look at the key lessons from the decision.

We reported on 1 September that the Federal Government has released exposure draft legislation for the new corporate collective investment vehicle (or CCIV). In this article Partner Marc Kemp and Consultant Derek Heath consider whether the CCIV is likely to replace the unit trust as the vehicle of choice for wholesale (as opposed to retail) fund structures.

Nearly nine years after the Johnson Report recommended the establishment of an Asia Region Funds Passport, last week the Corporations Amendment (Asia Region Funds Passport) Bill was introduced into Parliament, delivering on Australia’s commitment as set out in the Asian Region Funds Passport’s Memorandum of Cooperation. Partner Penny Nikoloudis and Associate Mai Go report on this significant milestone.