Australia’s corporate regulator wants to keep four sets of relief covering exchange-traded derivatives and securities, all of them due to expire later this year.

ASIC said Monday it would remake the instruments for another five years with only minor amendments, leaving their effect unchanged.

What the Four Rules Actually Do

All four lapse under the Legislation Act 2003, which automatically retires legislative instruments after a decade unless ASIC acts to preserve them. Three date back to 2016 and the fourth to 2021.

The renewal lands as the regulator works through a backlog of expiring rules and a broader cleanup, having scrapped more than 9,000 pages of regulatory content last year in a push it said was meant to cut compliance costs.

The instruments each sit in a different corner of market infrastructure. One removes duplicate disclosure for certain exchange-traded derivatives treated as issued by both an intermediary and a market participant, so that only the market participant has to provide a product disclosure statement.

A second recognizes securities settled through New Zealand’s former FASTER system, now the NZCDC Legal Title Transfer system, under Australian law. A third allows foreign-company shares and debentures quoted on the ASX to transfer with statutory warranties and indemnities.

The fourth, introduced in 2021, gives securities lenders relief from the substantial holding disclosure rules in Chapter 6C of the Corporations Act. That overlaps with the same disclosure forms ASIC flagged for simplification during last year’s red-tape review.

A Familiar Path for Expiring Relief

Rolling relief forward rather than rewriting it is a route ASIC has taken before. In 2022 the regulator extended financial requirements for retail OTC derivatives providers for five years on much the same basis, citing the need for industry certainty while any changes to primary law worked through.

ASIC said it had determined the four instruments are operating effectively and remain a useful part of the framework.

The agency is taking feedback on the proposal, set out in a consultation paper referenced as CS 56, until 5pm AEST on July 20. The substance of the instruments will not change if they are remade, the regulator said.

This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.RegulationRead More

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