Speaking at a Senate Economics Legislation Committee hearing on Friday, ASIC chair Sarah Court pushed back on the suggestion that the regulator is too slow to intervene when concerns are raised about certain high-risk investment products.
While ASIC can issue stop orders and public warnings as part of its early monitoring and supervision activities, Court said the regulator has to walk a fine line with these kinds of “disruptive actions.”
This is because, she continued, “people make a lot of money and do very well out of some of these schemes. And sometimes, if you intervene too early, investors feel like we’ve shut down an investment opportunity they were very happy with.”
“We’re working hard to take a more interventionist approach and shut things down at an early stage, but … I have a slight concern that you’ll then start hearing concerns about ASIC being too activist in closing down things that people don’t want us to. So, we’re in the middle of a rock and a hard place sometimes.”
Court’s comments were in response to a question from Senator Andrew Bragg about Lion Property Group, the property development firm that collapsed in 2025 leaving investors owed more than $120 million.
However, Court also took issue with Bragg’s suggestion that it had taken more than two years to see any meaningful enforcement outcomes from Shield and First Guardian.
“We’ve taken a more interventionist and aggressive stance on these collapses than I think we’ve done with any other matter. We’ve stood up around 50-60 people, working almost around the clock,” she said.
She continued: “They do take time, and our first priority there was to make sure that we recovered money for investors.”
This isn’t the first time ASIC has faced criticism for its allegedly protracted enforcement timelines in financial advice – indeed, it’s not even the first time ASIC has faced this criticism from Senator Bragg specifically.
Back in 2024, Bragg pressed the regulator on its response to Dixon Advisory, asking why it took “so long if the client loss was so great.”
He also asked why ASIC declined to take action against the advisers involved while Dixon was under investigation between 2015 and 2019 – especially given that, he said, “the problems with Dixon Advisory have been known [by other advisers] for many years.”
Court, then deputy chair, said ASIC didn’t take action against individual Dixon advisers “because Dixon held the AFSL”.
“Dixon has an obligation to ensure that advisers under its AFSL are doing so in full compliance with corporations law,” she added.
ASIC went into hiding with the Prime Trust saga where corruption was rife by political and bureaucratic figures found guilty, and no recompense for investors loss.
So ASIC did not take action against Dixon, as Dixon had his own AFSL and Dixon had an obligation that ensures there advisers are complaint. So why you took action for MWL advisers, MWL had its own licensee AFSL, as well and had obligation that there advisers fully comply with corporations law. So why ASIC has taken a different approach for MWL advisers. It does not make sense.
Jane Hume shut down the Senate enquiry into Dodgy Dixons.
– Why did it take 10 years of over 60 Adviser complaints and ASIC did nothing ?
– How does Treasury employ Nerida Cole, head of Dixon’s Advisory to then monitor Advisers when she clearly oversaw the Dixons MIS fiasco.
– ASIC let Dixons with E&P to Phoenix a $16 Mill loan that was owed to Dixons and move 3,000 clients and 40 Advisers from Dixons to E&P.
– How was Dixons MIS fiasco the only failure backdated into CSLR ?
Corrupt Canberra needs to answer these questions and more.