Acclime Corporate Snapshot – September 2025.
Acclime Corporate Snapshot provides you with an overview of current corporate governance matters, including regulatory changes, trends, and other important issues.
To discuss how these may affect you, please contact us on 03 8689 9997.
A look at the regulatory environment for 2025-26
The ASIC and APRA Corporate Plans, released this quarter, provide useful insights into the themes that both regulators are focussed upon over this financial year. In brief terms, those themes include data, technology risks and strengthening cyber resilience, retirement and superannuation, climate-related financial risk and sustainable finance, protecting consumers, small businesses and investors and strengthening financial market integrity.
Viewed with an enforcement lens, ASIC have signalled their intent to seek high penalties and sentences in court where appropriate, while APRA talks of increased intensity of its supervision, and also an uptick in formal enforcement action.
There’s an excellent deep dive on the Corporate Plans, prepared by Allens, which you can read here.
Taking the scissors to red tape
While we’re on ASIC, a new report from the corporate regulator discusses its efforts to reduce unnecessary regulatory measures. More than 9,000 pages of regulation have been binned since the start of 2025, amid calls for further ideas for regulatory simplification.
The report, released at the start of September, is part of a broader initiative at ASIC to cut down on complexity. ‘Regulatory complexity raises costs, stifles innovation and makes compliance harder,’ said ASIC Chair Joe Longo. ‘Simpler, clearer regulation is more enforceable but it also means more seamless interactions with ASIC, more understandable rules to protect consumers, and clearer compliance requirements.’
Submissions about red tape reduction are still welcome and will be open until 15 October – you can lodge yours at simplificationconsultativegroup@asic.gov.au
Just how cryptic is our stock market?
ASX has been engaged in a fascinating line of inquiry: how many listed entities are involved in crypto-related activities, and just what are they doing?
In a recent Listed@ASX Compliance Update, ASX seeks to remind the market that they have issued guidelines in the past about crypto-related assets – as far back as 2017 – and also provides an update on their approach to the sector. This is, after all, a rapidly growing and changing area of financial activity.
The principal concern, unsurprisingly, is regulatory uncertainty. How do you impose rules upon an asset class which exists, by definition, outside of institutional norms? There’s a lengthy discussion of these challenges in the Compliance Update, which is available here.
Some genuine wisdom about artificial intelligence
Debates around crypto and AI have a way of feeling connected, so this might be an appropriate chaser to our previous piece. Ashurst have published a discussion of AI and the law in Australia. Again, it’s all about parsing the relationship between an existing framework and a rapidly evolving field of activity. The paper examines thorny issues like the lack of international consensus on AI and law, the usefulness of existing legal norms like our consumer protections, and the need for AI-specific legal innovations. What becomes of our privacy as AI dominates our transactions? What about our employment rights and obligations? These are fundamental questions, and they aren’t going away. There’s a useful nation-by-nation comparison here as well, which shows we’re not alone in scrambling to keep up.
Only mergers in the building: A new regime commences
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), will have ultimate oversight for all acquisitions from 1 January 2026. 1 July 2025 marked the official commencement of the transition period toward this new regime, and businesses can already choose to voluntarily notify the ACCC of transactions under the new arrangements.
More specifically, acquisitions that come into effect on or after 1 January 2026 and are ‘connected with Australia’ must first be notified to and cleared by the ACCC if they satisfy certain monetary and control thresholds. Significant filing fees are payable, and although there are some exceptions to understand, non-compliance can result in significant penalties and the voiding of the transaction.
Voluntary notification of pending transactions seems a good idea, as delays are expected in the new year as the scheme takes effect. You can find more detail about the scheme in this excellent analysis from Allens.
Sources of information: Allens, Ashurst, Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX), Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Disclaimer: Acclime Corporate Snapshot is only intended to provide a general overview on matters of interest. It is not intended to be comprehensive and is not legal advice. Acclime Australia attempts to ensure that content is current but we do not guarantee its currency. You should seek legal and/or professional advice before acting or relying on any content.
