ASIC commences first court action on unfair contracts terms in insurance

Last week, ASIC commenced the first court proceedings alleging unfair contract terms in an insurance contract. The case involves standard form underwritten home and contents insurance contracts issued by Auto & General Insurance Company Limited (Auto & General). On 5 April 2021, the unfair contract term protections in Subdivision BA of the ASIC Act were … Read more

HSF FSR Practice launches a Breach Reporting Hotline

It’s time! We are excited to launch our brand new (and what we think is Australia’s first) ‘Breach Reporting Hotline’ service, which enables you to ‘bounce’ discrete queries off our team of experts as a way of cutting through some of the complexity that is intrinsic to this new regime. For more information, please see … Read more

Efficiently, Honestly and (still) Fairly Uncertain – The Quest for Certainty

The continuing uncertainty around the provision requiring licensees to provide financial services ‘efficiently, honestly and fairly’ under section 912A(1)(a) of the Corporations Act (EHF provision) comes into sharpest focus against the backdrop of the new breach reporting regime. In this article, we examine some common questions and challenges we are seeing emerge in relation to … Read more

Good Advice in Superannuation – The Elephant in the Room

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

Anti-hawking in financial services: Some observations on multi-product discounts

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

Opinion: Corporate law ‘like a Russian doll’

This article was originally published on The Australian Financial Review. By Michael Vrisakis Australia’s corporate law regime can be compared to a Russian doll, with one or more top-level dolls concealing other dolls. The president of the Australian Law Reform Commission, Justice Sarah Derrington, says there is a “large mass of secret law” made by … Read more

EHF in Focus: Dissecting the efficiently, honestly and fairly obligation with a governance lens

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