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 useful judicial commentary on the provisions.

Since the announcement of the Royal Commission into, ahem, financial services, much has been written and said – a lot of which suggests that little attention is being paid to the terms of reference. In this article I take a look at those terms.

The Attorney-General has announced that he has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to inquire into class action proceedings and third party litigation funders. The inquiry presents an important opportunity to take stock of how the class actions landscape has evolved, particularly whether entrepreneurialism among promoters is inappropriately traversing on the rights of class members. Partner Jenny Campbell and Lawyer Jerome Squires report.

Have you been wondering what the Royal Commission will make of the numerous witness statements and vast amounts of other information collected from superannuation trustees in recent times? You will find out soon enough. But first, there are some curiosities from the Round Four hearings to consider – including a hint as to what the superannuation hearings will include.

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 of politicians, media and the general public.

The Federal Government has announced that it proposes to strengthen ASIC’s powers, and to increase the severity of penalties (civil and criminal) that can be imposed on individuals and corporations, in line with the ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce’s recommendations. Partner Rachel Nicolson and Senior Overseas Practitioner Chris Kerrigan report.

The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is well underway, with its first round of public hearings wrapping up less than a month ago. By reference to a number of case studies, the first round of hearings focused on consumer lending practices. In this article, we report on the key themes identified by the Commission as arising from the hearings.

The Productivity Commission’s 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. We take you through the key issues and recommendations.

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 conventional views.

In the Interim Report, the Commissioner identifies four principal issues relating to agricultural lending.

As fertile ground for class actions, the Royal Commission has highlighted an ongoing problem with Australia’s class action regime – there is no clear, consistent means for resolving competing class actions.

It’s been a long five years or so of amendments to, and consultation on, the fees and costs disclosure regime for superannuation and managed investments products. And industry might be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu, with the release earlier this year of ASIC’s consultation paper on the regime.