The Financial Sector Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Regulation and Review) Bill 2007 was introduced into Federal Parliament on 21 June 2007.
It seeks to implement the recommendations contained in the Government's proposal paper Streamlining Prudential Regulation: Response to 'Rethinking Regulation'. The main aim of the Bill is to reduce regulatory burdens on business, especially by reducing regulatory overlap and inconsistencies between Acts governing different parts of the financial services industry. More particularly for compliance purposes, the Bill proposes:
- amending the breach reporting requirements in the prudential Acts (the Banking Act 1959, Insurance Act 1973, Life Insurance Act 1995 and the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993) to include a test which is consistent with the significant breach test in section 912D of the Corporations Act 2001. In other words, breaches of some obligations under the prudential Acts will only have to be reported to APRA if they are significant breaches
- removing the requirement from the prudential Acts for more than one person to report material breaches to APRA
- eliminating requirements to make breach reports to both APRA and ASIC
- including uniform provisions for the protection of whistleblowers in the prudential Acts
- amending some Acts so that APRA will have the power to accept court enforceable undertakings under all the prudential Acts; and
- simplifying the Life Insurance Act, so that the regulatory regime of the Act is similar to the regulatory regime of other prudential Acts.
Copies of the Bill and the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill can be downloaded from the Federal Parliament %20Current%20Bills%20by%20Title%20%20Financial%20Sector%20Legislation%20Amendment%20(Simplifying%20Regulation%20and%20Review)%20Bill%202007" target=_blankwebsite.