Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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CORPORATIONS (FEES) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2003 (NO. 1) 2003 NO. 128

Statutory Rules 2003 No. 128

Issued by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer

Corporations (Fees) Act 2001

Corporations (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2003 (No. 1)

Section 8 of the Corporations (Fees) Act 2001 provides that the Governor-General may make regulations for the purposes of sections 5 and 6 of that Act. Section 5 provides that, subject to section 6, the regulations may prescribe fees for chargeable matters and that fees prescribed by the regulations for chargeable matters are imposed, and are so imposed as taxes. Section 6 provides, among other things, that the regulations may prescribe a fee for a chargeable matter by specifying an amount as the fee or by specifying a method for calculating the amount of the fee.

The Financial Services Reform Act 2001 (FSRA) commenced on 11 March 2002. It amended the Corporations Act 2001 to introduce a uniform licensing, conduct and disclosure regime for financial service providers. The FSRA also amended related legislation, including the Corporations (Fees) Act 2001.

Under the FSRA, a two-year transition period was established to allow time for existing industry participants to enter the new regime.

The purpose of this regulation is to support the reforms to the regulation of the financial services industry, which are included in the Financial Services Reform Act 2001 and associated legislation.

The regulation relates to fees for lodging particular documents with ASIC, when a financial services licensee changes its name.

Details of the regulation are set out in the Attachment.

The regulation commences on gazettal.

ATTACHMENT

SCHEDULE 1- AMENDMENTS COMMENCING ON GAZETTAL

Item 1 - Waive fee for notification of change of name of licensee - item 1D in schedule 1.

If a company wants to change its name, section 157 of the Corporations Act 2001 requires that this be done by way of a special resolution and that the prescribed form be lodged with ASIC to notify the name change. Furthermore, under Financial Services Reform, section 915A provides that ASIC may vary an Australian Financial Services Licence to take account of a name change, provided the application, is lodged with ASIC.

This regulation waives the $30 default fee that applies to lodgement of a "Notice of particulars of cessation or change in relation to the holder of a licence" on the basis that the licensee would have to pay fees on other documents that are required to be lodged and contain the same information.