Our last article on this topic canvassed the new best financial interests duty (BFID) in some detail (link here), particularly the breadth of the duty and how it impacts on delegations. We touched on the reach of the new duty in terms of whether it is a subjective test, an objective test and/or an outcomes-based test. … Read more

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 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

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

On 16 July, Treasury released Exposure Draft legislation for the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR)(FAR Bill). While the FAR Bill has some similarities to the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) in the Banking Act 1959 (Cth), there are some provisions of the FAR Bill which differ to BEAR and which raise concerns about over-regulation and uncertainty. … Read more

This edition of our ‘FSR GPS’ (Guidelines, Principles and Strategies) series covers the upcoming changes to the anti-hawking regime for financial products in the Corporations Act, with the new regime coming into effect on 5 October 2021. In this article, we outline: our 12 legal principles which go to the heart of the new anti-hawking … Read more