The 6th Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance Implementation and Enforcement in Corporate Governa

1
The 6th Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance
- Implementation and Enforcement in Corporate
Governance

• Louise Macaulay
• Australian Securities Investments Commission
•  
• Theme II Session 1
• Stock Exchange Enforcement
• Seoul, Korea
• 2-3 November 2004
• The views expressed in this paper are those of
  the author and do not necessarily represent the
  opinions of the OECD or its Member countries or
  the World Bank

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Australian Securities Investments Commission
(ASIC)

• What is ASIC?
• Independent Government body
• What ASIC regulates
• Financial markets, securities, futures,
  companies
• How ASIC is funded
• Australian Government funding
• Oversight of ASIC
• Courts, Parliament, administrative review

3
Regulatory enforcement bodies in Australia

• Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
• Australian Competition Consumer Commission
• Australian Stock Exchange Limited

4
How ASIC is organised

• Six Directorates
• 1,531 staff
• (Enforcement Directorate 385 staff).
• Executive
• 3 full-time Commissioners, including
• 1 Chairman
• Offices in each State Territory of Australia

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Management of ASIC investigations

• Sources of investigations
• Complaints from public, employee whistleblowers,
  media, etc
• Referrals from other regulators/enforcers
• Auditors and liquidators
• Other directorates within ASIC
• How ASIC manages investigations
• Information systems
• Decision-making

6
ASICs investigatory powers

• Compulsory production of documents
• Notices to produce
• Search warrants
• Compulsory inspection of financial documents
• Compulsory examinations of people

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ASICs remedies

• Criminal proceedings
• Prosecution decision made by Commonwealth
  Director of Public Prosecutions
• Civil proceedings
• Civil penalty proceedings
• Injunctions
• Winding up
• Damages and/or compensation

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ASICs remedies cont.

• Administrative proceedings
• Banning directions/licensees
• Fines breach of continuous disclosure
• Often used in combination

9
Recent ASIC enforcement actions

• HIH (listed insurance company)
• One.Tel (listed telecommunications company)
• Clifford Corporation (listed diversified group
  company)

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Key enforcement challenges for ASIC

• Volume of work and amount of resources available
• Measuring our success
• Should we be measured by the number of jail
  sentences imposed?
• Internationalisation
• Internet
• Cross-jurisdictional enforcement
• Relationships with overseas regulators and
  enforcers