In a video uploaded to the YouTube website yesterday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s chairman said the corporate regulator is being unfairly treated by the press.
“Recent media reports have tried to cast doubt on ASIC’s good work and smear our staff and culture,” Mr Medcraft said.
At the same time, Mr Medcraft acknowledged that “people have high expectations” of the corporate regulator due to its “broad remit” and the fact that its work affects large swathes of the community.
Mr Medcraft defended his staff and ASIC’s enforcement record over recent months.
“ASIC has done much to be proud of – we have good staff who work here for a good reason: because they care about the public interest,” he said.
The chairman pointed to the statistics of ASIC’s industry bans, investigations and surveillance activity, emphasising its achievement of $349 million in compensation for consumers and investors.
Mr Medcraft also took the opportunity to reiterate that ASIC welcomes the Senate inquiry into its performance.
“Inquiries like this are all about our accountability to the parliament and we take that seriously,” he said.
Let’s be clear: nothing, not even enough laws and regulation to drown an industry in, can stop criminals stealing people’s money. It’s not the regulator who defrauds investors. It’s Directors and Advisers in positions of fiduciary trust and responsibility who do it – yet how many go to jail or have their assets sold up or get banned for life? A 5 or 10 year ban is nothing to these people who will continue to run businesses and defraud innocent Mums and Dads while subject to some toothless ban or EU. The biggest problem I see is that the penalties are not strong enough and ASIC does not have the staff or culture to effectively police the industry it regulates. The laws need to change, penalties need to increase, jail terms imposed more often, and ASIC budgets need to increase for enforcement activity. However, if ASIC is turning a blind eye to corruption at the top end of town – then Medcraft and many others must fall and face criminal charges themselves.
There is an apparent, to me, emphasis on large corporate issues. While I applaud, however late or lenient approaches, some with good results, there is the issue of “INDIVIDUALS” who cannot get any interest from ASIC. On their web site there is the comment “ASIC does not settle disputes about financial services or advice.
read ASICs approach to enforcement (INFO 151 – PDF 241KB). (P2 of 11)
Not a very comforting situation from a regulator which promotes itself through CAP.
The Consumer Advisory Panel (CAP) Any single complaint from any single consumer goes unrecorded by ASIC. How many single complaints are there? Collectively, in my opinion, they would dwarf the whole of the issues dealt with by ASIC.
Its a pity he dosent send a link to the people who lost money in Trio, Storm, CBA etc and ask them if they think that we (ASIC) have done a stirling job. Of coarse he wont, hes not that silly……..
The financial planning community also “has done much to be proud of we have good staff who work here for a good reason: because they care about the public interest” Yet I have never heard that acknowledged by ASIC. They have deliberately set out to blame and embarrass our profession for ASICs failures, and they refuse to engage with us in any meaningful way to improve financial planning regulation for the public good. What goes around, comes around Mr Medcraft!
Problem with putting only a Positive spin on your performance, makes one wonder about what they are doing to stop their failures – Trio, CBA Macquarie, Storm etc. Nothing is the implication.