The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released Consultation Paper 311 seeking input from interested parties on 15 proposals that will change the way Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) holders conduct and report on internal dispute resolution (IDR)  processes. Submissions close on 9 August 2019, with the final revisions to Regulatory Guide 165: Internal Dispute Resolution to be published in December 2019. The measures are proposed to be progressively implemented between December 2019 and…

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) this week released its 12-month Insights Report for the Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) Scheme (Report).  The Report shows trends and noteworthy statistics from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019, reporting an uptick in notifications and identifying the most common cyber trends leading to a requirement to notify. The OAIC notes that many entities have taken a proactive approach to engage with the OAIC and it has…

Continuing on from our blog series “Insurance After Hayne”, we will be posting short interviews with industry and legal experts on the Hayne recommendations and the proposed reforms to the industry.   In the second instalment of the series, we were joined by John Price, Lead Ombudsman for General Insurance Decisions at the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), to discuss Commissioner Hayne’s recommendation to provide for legally enforceable provisions of industry codes. If industry codes are…

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Design and Distribution Obligations and Product Intervention Powers) Act 2019 passed Parliament last week and received royal assent shortly after. It introduces design and distribution obligations into the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), requiring financial services entities to consider the design of their retail financial products and the way they are distributed.  The amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) also give the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) power to intervene…

What’s happened? The Australian Attorney-General’s department has announced a proposed new regime that would make changes to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act). The proposed changes would see a significant expansion of the powers afforded to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), particularly with respect to the scope of penalties that may be handed out by the OAIC. The Attorney-General’s department states that the proposed changes are aimed at increasing online protection for…

A Norton Rose Fulbright webinar with John Anning, Insurance Council of Australia Continuing on from our blog series “Insurance After Hayne”, we will be posting short interviews with industry and legal experts on the Hayne recommendations and the proposed reforms to the industry. In the first of these interviews, Ray Giblett (insurance partner, Sydney) sat down with John Anning, General Manager Policy, Regulation Directorate, Insurance Council of Australia and Matt Ellis (insurance partner, Melbourne) to…

Welcome to the 6th and final instalment of our weekly updates following the Hayne Royal Commission into the financial services industry. This week we focus on Recommendation 4.12, in which Hayne recommends that the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) be extended to other financial service providers, including insurers. Now that the full contents of the report have been laid bare, we can investigate what extending the BEAR beyond its native banking habitat (that’s the last…