- Advocacy
SMSF Association Submission
The Self Managed Super Fund Association (SMSFA) understands the concerns regarding penalties in legislation administered by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) may not be effective in reflecting community perceptions to the seriousness of engaging in certain forms of misconduct.
Therefore, we are supportive of the timely system review in order to ensure that the penalty system is sufficiently dissuading misconduct within the financial services industry. We believe consistency between jurisdictions, appropriate pecuniary and imprisonment penalties and reflecting the views of the community should be the overriding principles in the review.
As identified by the Financial Services Inquiry and through a number of forums we agree that certain penalties for corporate and financial sector misconduct are too low to act as a ‘credible deterrent’. While the SMSFA supports the strengthening of penalties we also warn that additional penalties and stronger legislation may not ultimately result in increased protections from corporate and financial sector misconduct, as offenders who are willing to engage in bad behaviour are ordinarily still likely to continue engaging in bad behaviour.