By Ruth Stringer and Preeta Seshachari After a long gestation period, the Federal Government’s proposed retirement income covenant (RIC) for superannuation trustees has finally been revealed with the publication of Exposure Draft legislation (available here). The new covenant will require superannuation trustees to develop a retirement income strategy for the benefit of beneficiaries who are retired … Read more

This article addresses the integration of the efficiently, honestly and fairly (EHF) obligation into the risk assessment and breach reporting frameworks of financial institutions that hold an AFSL. Central to this exercise is the integration of the EHF obligation into operational processes, procedures, decision-making and, last but not least, organisational culture. The role of fairness … Read more

This edition of our ‘FSR GPS’ (Guidelines, Principles and Strategies) series provides some insights and practical guidance on the new ‘best financial interests duty’ that applies to superannuation trustees. This duty has been inserted into section 52(2)(c) of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (Cth) (SIS Act), amending the previous best interests duty. Is the … Read more

By M Scott Donald and Ruth Stringer Amongst the measures introduced by the government in its Your Future Your Super policy initiative is a test of the historical performance of each MySuper product in the market.  Trustees whose MySuper product fail the performance test conducted annually by APRA will be required to send to all … Read more

Two recent cases have shed new light on the scope of the obligation on AFS licensees to do all things necessary to act efficiently, honestly and fairly in the provision of financial services (EHF obligation). The cases also give some illustration of how the EHF obligation can apply to product issuers. Both cases illustrate, in … Read more

On Friday 6 August 2021, Treasury registered the long-awaited anti-hawking regulations in relation to financial services, which can be found here. The Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response) (Hawking of Financial Products) Regulations 2021 (Cth) operate to exempt certain conduct from the proposed anti-hawking prohibition coming into effect on 5 October 2021. Some key … Read more

This edition of our ‘FSR GPS’ (Guidelines, Principles and Strategies) series provides some insights on the requirement to report significant dealings to ASIC under the upcoming DDO regime, which is due to come into effect on 5 October 2021. Under the DDO regime, a product issuer has an obligation to report a ‘significant dealing’ to … Read more

We have previously written about our 12 principles that apply to the implementation of the new anti-hawking regime (NAHR), as well as some observations on the evolving structure of insurance contracts and distribution resulting from the NAHR. In this article, we make some further observations on the scope of an invitation, consent, causation, and the … Read more