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D'Aloisio defends ASIC's reactive role

D'Aloisio defends ASIC's reactive role

The chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Tony D’Aloisio, has defended the role of the corporate regulator, arguing that its role is not to prevent losses or failures but to enforce the law, clean up the mess and punish wrongdoers.

D’Aloisio used a speech in Brisbane to acknowledge that many people suggested ASIC should prevent losses or failures, but said this was not consistent with the regulator’s legislated responsibilities, which were limited and focused on oversight and enforcement.

Likening ASIC’s role to that of a road traffic authority, D’Aloisio said: “Basically, ASIC oversees and enforces the laws and couples that with extensive work to guide and educate those who travel on the roads”.

“Unfortunately, accidents still happen,” he said. “When they do, we turn up at the scene, we clear the mess, we care for the injured and we punish the wrongdoers.”

However, D’Aloisio said ASIC also used its resources to look for dangers, to determine where accidents might happen and to fix them ahead of time.

“But it is simply not the intention of the Act, and consequently ASIC is not resourced to be on every road and at every intersection,” he said.

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Add a comment Comments

  • I think D’Aloisio is right...people seem to think they can invest and only participate in the upside. They want to legislate away risk which of course is irrational.

    JohnS | 22 July 2010 at 12:02

  • Oh well....batten down the hatches and prepare for the next disaster everyone, seeing as no-one is monitoring the market. I guess Storm were compliant, so that didn't attract any attention even though warnings were made. Amazing how Sonray Capital failure appeared out of nowhere and yet similar companies had collapsed earlier in the GFC. ASIC had dealings with Trio Capital several years ago, but never looked deep enough to see the sinkhole opening. Stuffing around with financial adviser remuneration methods and SOA templates aren't going to stop these events from happening.

    Gee | 22 July 2010 at 16:59

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