(b) General insurance products and dollar disclosure In 2005, ASIC granted transitional relief for issuers of general insurance products from the dollar disclosure requirements 30 June 2006 under Class Order [CO 05/683] Dollar disclosure: further transitional relief. This extension followed the Government's announced review of product disclosure statement (PDS) requirements for deposit products and general insurance products as part of the Refinements to Financial Services Regulation Proposals Paper (May 2005). As a result of this review, the Government excluded basic deposit products from the PDS regime in December 2005, leaving non-basic and general insurance products under the PDS regime. However, the Government applied a modified PDS regime to issuers of general insurance products. The Government is now reviewing the application of the dollar disclosure regime to general insurance products (see the Corporate and Financial Services Regulation Review, 2006). Recognising the need for flexibility in compliance with dollar disclosure until a permanent position is developed, ASIC has extended transitional relief until 31 March 2007. The extension of relief is provided under Class Order [CO 06/476] Variation of Class Orders [CO 05/681] and [CO 05/683]. Further background information the dollar disclosure requirements and issuers of deposit products is available on the ASIC website. 2.5 ASIC reports on SFE group On 20 June 2006, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) released the findings of its fourth assessment of the Sydney Futures Exchange Limited (SFE) and SFE Clearing Corporation Limited (SFECC), and its second assessment of Austraclear Limited (Austraclear). Under the Corporations Act, ASIC is required to conduct an annual assessment of how well the SFE is complying with its obligations to supervise its market and how well SFECC and Austraclear are complying with their obligations to supervise their respective clearing and settlement facilities. ASIC has concluded that the SFE has adequate arrangements for supervising the market, including arrangements for: handling conflicts between its commercial interests and the obligation to operate the market in a fair, orderly and transparent way monitoring the conduct of participants, and enforcing compliance with its rules. SFE is already acting on suggested improvements to its supervision, compliance and disciplinary arrangements to ensure it can continue to comply with its obligations in the future. The report also that SFE suffered some outages on its SYCOM trading system in the last year. ASIC is satisfied that SFE has taken swift action to minimise the
(e) Decision His Honour held that the receivers' costs should not be recovered out of the assets of the defendants. His Honour stated that ASIC may, however, apply again for the orders as circumstances change. French J ordered Mr to present himself for examination by ASIC and the receivers. His Honour found that there is a real possibility that the disclosure affidavits signed by Mr Carey had failed to disclose the full extent of assets or property owned or controlled by him or in relation to which he had an interest. 5.4 Approving a scheme of arrangement under section 411(4) of the Corporations Act (By David van Dieren, Mallesons Stephen Jaques) Re HIH Casualty and General Insurance Limited [2006] NSWSC 485, New South Wales Supreme Court, Barrett J, 26 May 2006 The full text of this judgment is available at: or http://cclsr.law.unimelb.edu.au/judgments/search/advcorp.asp (a) Summary Part 5.1 of the Corporations Act 2001 (the Act) provides for a mechanism by a corporation may enter into a legally enforceable scheme of arrangement or compromise with its creditors. A scheme of arrangement allows a company to reach an agreement with its creditors to defer, rearrange or extinguish its obligations. This arrangement or compromise must be approved by creditors at meetings duly convened in accordance with section 411(1) of the Act and be sanctioned by an order of the court under section 411(4). This case concerns certain subsidiaries of HIH Insurance Ltd (the Scheme companies) seeking an order of the court under section 411(4)(b) to have a scheme of arrangement or compromise (the Scheme) approved. In determining whether the court should give approval to the Scheme, Barrett J examined the following matters: whether the creditors relevant to the Scheme were appropriately identified; whether the procedure of the meeting of creditors complied with proper procedure contemplated by section 411(1); whether any creditors will be treated in a discriminatory manner that causes them to be, for the purposes of section 411, a class of creditors distinct and separate from the remainder of the creditors; and