The Government has examined the case for making one regulator responsible for both personal insolvency laws and corporate insolvency laws and decided to retain the status quo.
Hence, it will be business as usual for the Insolvency Trustee Service Australia (personal insolvency) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (corporate insolvency).
The Australian Productivity Commission (APC) recommended in its report on the Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Business and Consumer Services (the Report) that the Government consider the option of having a single regulator of what are, in many respects, similar laws.
In response to this recommendation (part of number 4.3), the Government says:
“The Government is not proposing to establish a new single regulator of personal and corporate insolvency regimes. There would be major upfront costs of merging the regulators, which may not necessarily be offset by long-term savings. The extent to which simply unifying the regulators would result in an improved regulatory environment is not clear. Separate policy considerations apply to many aspects of personal and corporate insolvencies and there is not currently sufficient evidence that a one-size-fits-all approach for all issues would necessarily optimise outcomes for stakeholders. The removal of the responsibility for regulation of corporate insolvency from the corporate regulator would result in corporate insolvency losing its important connection with other parts of ASIC, for example in relation to major corporate administrations, regulation of insolvent trading and of director and corporate misconduct that may have occurred in the lead up to, or during, an insolvency event.”
The Government’s formal response to the Report was released by the APC on 13 October 2011 and may be found HERE.
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