Abstract
[Extract]
Regulation and compliance in the post-Hayne world is an absolute priority for directors and officers of companies and for trustee directors. Inattention to these evolving and complex duties can result in career destroying consequences. Even with internal compliance regimes to manage risk and protect directors, the present regulatory environment is spirit-crushing. This is far from the concept of a company to be entrepreneurial and risk-seeking, being for many directors the reason to accept a board position.
Complexity arises from statutory accretion, regulators adopting policy creation postures by regulation, a profusion of Inquiries and Commissions, Parliamentary responses to egregious behaviours (which can be ill-informed or subjected to lobbying), conflicting provisions in the general law, and globalisation of investment flows with conflicting interpretations of statutory and general law duties in multiple bespoke regulatory environments. Different statutes interpret commonly used legal language in different ways with different results. Regulators in recent senior court proceedings against directors and trustees have adopted postures which are not the law.
Regulation and compliance in the post-Hayne world is an absolute priority for directors and officers of companies and for trustee directors. Inattention to these evolving and complex duties can result in career destroying consequences. Even with internal compliance regimes to manage risk and protect directors, the present regulatory environment is spirit-crushing. This is far from the concept of a company to be entrepreneurial and risk-seeking, being for many directors the reason to accept a board position.
Complexity arises from statutory accretion, regulators adopting policy creation postures by regulation, a profusion of Inquiries and Commissions, Parliamentary responses to egregious behaviours (which can be ill-informed or subjected to lobbying), conflicting provisions in the general law, and globalisation of investment flows with conflicting interpretations of statutory and general law duties in multiple bespoke regulatory environments. Different statutes interpret commonly used legal language in different ways with different results. Regulators in recent senior court proceedings against directors and trustees have adopted postures which are not the law.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Legalwise Insights |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Nov 2020 |