On 27 October 2022, ASIC released its first publication of information lodged under the new breach reporting regime, Report 740 Insights from the reportable situations regime: October 2021 to June 2022 (Report 740). As readers will be aware, the new breach reporting regime for financial services came into effect on 1 October 2021, seeking to … Read more

The Decision Yesterday’s decision of the Full Federal Court in MetLife Insurance Limited v Australian Financial Complaints Authority Limited [2022] FCAFC 173 upheld MetLife’s contention that AFCA does not have jurisdiction to hear complaints made directly against life companies relating to life insurance in superannuation. The issue arose due to a specific complaint which was … Read more

On 20 October 2022, Herbert Smith Freehills published our sixth edition of the Global Bank Review: Banking on People. Against a backdrop of increased societal expectations, shifting employee priorities, reliance on technology and an uncertain economic outlook, ‘Banking on People’ delves deeper into the people-centric issues our banks clients are grappling with and explores the … Read more

The Quality of Advice Review contains some very sensible recommendations with respect to financial advice in the superannuation fund setting. Nonetheless, section 3.2 of the Proposals Paper raises the issue of the possible expansion of the concept of intra-fund advice. The following quote is instructive: “Most (although not all) superannuation fund trustees have told us … Read more

The recent charges imposed on a (very) famous influencer in the US by the US Securities and Exchange Commission is informative to the current discussion and debate in Australia regarding the Quality of Advice Review. The charges (which were ultimately settled for a sum of $1.26 million and a 3-year embargo on promoting crypto asset … Read more

One of the very memorable catch phrases from the Animals’ song repertoire goes along the lines of “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” These words could be applied, respectfully, to the proposed “Good Advice” duty – specifically, the central pivot which links “good advice” to the test of whether the advice would be … Read more

In August 2022, the Quality of Advice Review released its Proposals Paper setting out a range of proposals to improve the accessibility and affordability of financial advice. Our team has made a formal submission to the Quality of Advice Review. While we strongly support the majority of the proposals outlined in the Proposals Paper, there are … Read more

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its consultation on a new cross-industry prudential standard for operational risk management, CPS 230, which proposes to introduce a range of new requirements on APRA-regulated entities for managing operational risk and enhance existing requirements for business continuity and service provider management. Operational resilience is critical to the … Read more