Friday 3 October 2014

AFSA and ASIC renew MOU

Veronique Ingram
Photo: AFSA 
AFTER 12 years ASIC and AFSA have renewed their vows, signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that replaces a previous arrangement entered into by the regulators of corporate and personal insolvency in April 2002.

The new MOU is designed to facilitate the exchange of information and ensure appropriate referral of relevant matters between the two agencies.

It is also intended to promote cooperation in the areas of compliance, education and enforcement by obliging the regulators to share information when it would make sense to do so and allows for the establishment of  joint task forces when and where appropriate.

In promoting a spirit of cooperation one would’ve thought should have already existed, the MOU requires that ASIC and AFSA liaise in regards to operational and policy matters, liaising being defined for the purposes of the MOU as, among other things, a minimum two meetings a year.


ASIC's John Price
Photo: Flickr
Like a good pre-nup the new MOU’s goals are judiciously curtailed by indistinct and ambivalent legalese, best exemplified by the phrases “best endeavours”, “where appropriate” and “subject to each agency’s obligations at law”.

The new MOU came into effect on September 30, 2014 and is signed by the Inspector General in Bankruptcy Veronique Ingram and ASIC Commissioner John Price. See for yourself:
 MOU between AFSA and ASIC - September 2014

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1 comment:

  1. Under the Corporations Act a person who becomes a bankrupt or enters into a personal insolvency agreement is automatically disqualified from managing corporations (S.206B). I would like to know whether AFSA provides ASIC with the names and addresses of persons who become bankrupt, etc., and whether ASIC compares this information with its database of directors with a view to having disqualified directors removed.

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