4516 - S - Treasury Laws Amendment Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures Bill

This is particularly concerning given—to borrow the words of Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Chair Joe Longo—that Schedule 4 to the Bill is the “biggest change in the financial services sector in a generation”3 resulting in a “seismic shift” for corporates and investors;4 and the substantial changes made to the Bill since the Exposure Draft was released by the 1 Explanatory. [...] Under the transitional provisions, the directors’ declaration comprises an opinion as to whether the entity has taken ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure the substance of the sustainability report complies with legislation, including sustainability standards.7 This formulation acknowledges the difficulty for a director to form an opinion based on reasonable grounds about the accuracy of a sustainability. [...] To improve the efficacy of the limited immunity, the Law Council recommends the following changes to broaden the scope of the immunity: (a) Forward-looking statements should have 3-year coverage: under the proposed subsection 1707D(4), the immunity only applies to forward-looking climate-related statements in the first 12 months of the regime. [...] (c) The immunity should cover the first 3 reporting years for Groups 1, 2 and 3: the limited immunity should cover the first 3 reporting years of Groups 1, 2 and 3 rather than just the first 3 years of the reporting regime. [...] The proposed subsection 1707D(1) only applies the limited immunity to disclosures made under other regimes if the statement is required under Commonwealth law, and the statement ‘is the same’ as that within the sustainability report, or ‘contains updates or corrections’ to the statements in the sustainability report.