Corporations Point-in-Time Service Updates

Tuesday 21 August 2018 @ 1.30 p.m.

The Corporations Point-in-Time Service has been updated to include the Corporations (Fees) Amendment (ASIC Fees) Act 2018 (Cth) (Act 55 of 2018), the Corporations Amendment (Asia Region Funds Passport) Act 2018 (Act 61 of 2018), the Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment Act 2018 (Act 72 of 2018), the Treasury Laws Amendment (ASIC Fees) Regulations 2018 (Cth), the Corporations Amendment (Stay on Enforcing Certain Rights) Regulations (No. 2) 2018 (Cth), the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Amendment (Enhancements) Regulations 2018 (Cth) and the Business Names Registration Amendment (Delegation and Notified Register) Regulations 2018 (Cth).

Act 55 of 2018

    This Act:

  • increases the caps to allow ASIC to recover the costs ASIC incurs when providing regulatory services;
  • expands the definition of chargeable matter and prescribes who is liable to pay and when the liability is incurred;
  • provides that the Fees Regulations may prescribe for a particular chargeable matter, whether the fee is for low, medium or high complexity;
  • provides that the Fees Regulations may prescribe for a particular chargeable matter, different fees based on the type of entity;
  • provides that ASIC can determine by legislative instrument whether a type of application for a particular regulatory service is low, medium or high complexity; and
  • allows regulations to be made for the purposes of the Act.

Act 61 of 2018

The Act introduces into Australian law a multilateral framework that allows eligible funds to be marketed across economies participating in the Asia Region Funds Passport with limited additional regulatory requirements. The Passport is intended to support the development of an Asia-wide managed funds industry through improved market access and regulatory harmonisation.    

Act 72 of 2018

The Act makes consequential amendments to the Corporations Amendment (Asia Region Funds Passport) Act 2018 (the Asia Region Funds Passport Act). The amendments allow the regulations to prescribe fees in relation to the review dates for notified foreign passport funds.    

Treasury Laws Amendment (ASIC Fees) Regulations 2018

The purpose of the Treasury Laws Amendment (ASIC Fees) Regulations 2018 is to amend the Corporations (Fees) Regulations 2001 (Fees Regulations), National Consumer Credit Protection (Fees) Regulation 2010 (Credit Fees Regulations) and the Superannuation Auditor Registration Imposition Regulation 2012 to:

  • prescribe the cost reflective fees that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) can charge for the services it provides for a specific entity;
  • provide a tiering regime for fees to ensure entities pay the appropriate fee based on the complexity of the service;
  • update the hourly rate that ASIC charges, to ensure the rate closely reflects the costs incurred by ASIC;
  • provide that indexation will only apply to registry fees; and
  • ensure that fees that are no longer required to be charged have ‘no fee’.

Corporations Amendment (Stay on Enforcing Certain Rights) Regulations (No. 2) 2018

These regulations amend the Corporations Regulations 2001 by repealing and substituting paragraph 5.3A.50(2)(f) to broaden the scope of the exclusion from the operation of the stay in sections 415D, 434J and 451E of the Corporations Act 2001. 

ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Amendment (Enhancements) Regulations 2018

The ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Amendment (Enhancements) Regulations 2018 (the Regulations) amend the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Regulations 2017 to:

  • provide for the recovery of ASIC’s operating costs incurred under the previous ASIC market supervisory cost recovery regime (Schedule 1);
  • exempt registered charities and not-for-profits from the levy and allow ASIC to recover its enforcement, compliance and surveillance costs relating to individuals regulated by ASIC (Schedule 2);
  • clarify that exempt foreign entities only have to pay a levy in relation to their securities held in Australia (Schedule 3);
  • expand the ‘small amount credit providers’ subsector to also cover medium amount credit providers (Schedule 4);
  • remove possible double counting of assets for the purpose of calculating the levy amount payable by entities that fall within both the responsible entities and wholesale trustees subsectors (Schedule 5);
  • exclude employer-sponsored receivables from the value of assets in a registerable superannuation entity for the purposes of calculating the amount of levy payable by superannuation trustees (Schedule 6);
  • provide that specialised market operators no longer fall within the small securities exchange operators subsector (Schedule 7);
  • create new subsectors for new and established specialised market operators (Schedule 8);
  • make minor technical adjustments to the operation of the levy as it applies to over-the-counter (OTC) traders, retail over-the-counter derivative issuers, wholesale electricity dealers and securities dealers (Schedules 9 and 13);
  • establish a new industry subsectors to reflect the recently introduced licensing scheme for financial benchmark administrators (Schedule 10);
  • modify the credit rating agencies subsector to differentiate between credit rating agencies that have a supervisory college and credit rating agencies that do not (Schedule 11); and
  • simplify the operation of the levy metric for the large futures exchange participants and large securities exchange participants subsectors (Schedule 12).

The Regulations also amend the Corporations (Review Fees) Regulations 2003 to factor in ASIC’s regulatory costs for proprietary companies into their annual review fee (Schedule 15); and the Corporations (Fees) Regulations 2001 to remove certain lodgement fees for publishing prescribed notices on ASIC’s publication website (Schedule 16).

Business Names Registration Amendment (Delegation and Notified Register) Regulations 2018

These regulations make minor and machinery changes to the Business Names Registration Regulations 2011.   

These amendments have been updated in the Point-in-Time Corporations Service current to 19 August 2018. (NB: subscription required).

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