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 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

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

For some time now, the issue of whether a sales representative can cross-position different insurance policies or financial products through the mechanism of a multi-policy or multi-product discount has been somewhat of a vexed issue – to say the least. In this context, we are referring to a scenario where a client makes an enquiry … Read more

Public attention on the ways Australian superannuation funds are engaging with the challenges of climate change has never been greater. Media reporting of Australia’s position at COP26, together with concerted advertising by some funds of their sustainability credentials, means that members are more interested than ever about how their monies are being deployed. This interest … Read more

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of first-time traders flocked to the market, which propelled financial influencers (‘finfluencers’) into ASIC’s spotlight and squarely placed them within ASIC’s enforcement remit. The rise of finfluencers is unsurprising in the social media and digital age. As financial services and financial product distribution become more challenging and complex … Read more

We have previously written about the doctrine of unconscionable conduct, where we follow the developing law of both statutory and equitable unconscionable conduct. The yo-yo starts its first play with the 2019 High Court decision in ASIC v Kobelt, which created significant uncertainty in the doctrine of unconscionable conduct (see our article here).[1] Five separate … Read more

Our Financial Services Regulatory team surveys the regulatory landscape for 2022 and identifies themes that we expect to be at the core of regulatory priorities globally over the next 12 months.  On 7 December 2021, HSF published its annual Financial Services Regulatory Outlook report surveying the global regulatory landscape for 2022 which addressed the following … Read more