By Matthew Watts and Rebecca Mangos
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has revealed its key enforcement priorities for 2023. This year, ASIC has signalled an expanded focus on enforcement activity targeting:
By Kane Barnett and Bernard Sia
Since 1 October 2021, when the design and distribution obligations (DDO) commenced, ASIC has issued 13 DDO‒related stop orders.
What has non-compliance looked like so far?
ASIC’s first DDO stop order was issued in July 2022 when ASIC identified a target market determination (TMD) that included retail investors for whom the investment would not be appropriate. The other initial interim stop orders related to the failure to prepare a TMD.
Read MoreBy: Keri E. Riemer, Michael W. McGrath, Neil T. Smith, Hayley Trahan-Liptak, and Christopher F. Warner
On 15 November 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced its enforcement statistics for its 2022 fiscal year (FY 2022), noting that it filed 760 total enforcement actions — a 9% increase over fiscal year 2021. This total was comprised of 462 new actions, 169 “follow-on” actions, and 129 actions for delinquent filings. Money obtained in SEC actions, comprising civil penalties, disgorgement, and pre-judgment interest, totaled a record-breaking $6.439 billion (compared to $3.852 billion in fiscal year 2021). Civil penalties, totaling $4.194 billion, were also the highest on record.
Read MoreBy Jim Bulling and Hugo Chow
ASIC sues Latitude Finance Australia and Harvey Norman Holdings for allegedly misleading interest free advertising
ASIC is suing Latitude Finance Australia (Latitude) and Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd (Harvey Norman) over the promotion of interest-free payment methods.
ASIC alleges that advertisements which included “no deposit”, “interest free” payment options over specified terms for purchases at Harvey Norman were misleading as they did not disclose that consumers could only use these payment options if they applied for and used a Latitude GO Mastercard, and that Harvey Norman misrepresented the actual costs of these payment options as they did not adequately disclose the establishment fees and monthly account fees.
Read MoreBy: Cheryl L. Isaac and Matthew J. Rogers
On September 27, 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced the settlement of charges against the swap dealer (“SD”) and futures commission merchant (“FCM”) affiliates of 11 financial institutions totaling more than $710 million. The action, filed and settled on the same day and brought in tandem with a related Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) action, charged the institutions with failing to meet certain CFTC recordkeeping requirements. Specifically, the Commission determined that the SDs / FCMs failed to stop their employees from communicating internally and externally using unapproved communication methods such as WhatsApp or Signal.
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