FASEA to amend Standard 3

FASEA’s comments came in response to questions on notice from Liberal senator Slade Brockman, who blasted Standard 3 of the code for amounting to “a complete ban on all conflicts of interest”.

“Will FASEA seek to amend Standard 3 before you cease operations?” Senator Brockman asked.

While the standards authority took issue with Senator Brockman’s interpretation of Standard 3, it said that “FASEA has plans to consult on Standard 3 of the code this year”.

“[FASEA] will continue to work on enhancing and refining it before operations cease,” the body said.

FASEA referred to 37 submissions it had received around its latest code of ethics guidance, many of which had pointed to the urgent need to refine the wording of Standard 3.

“Standard 3 received particular comment with a broad range of suggestions made including [to] retain the standard as is, incorporate the wording and intent from the draft guide into the standard to give it legal application, incorporate a reasonable person and materiality test into the standard, revert to the original wording of the standard re inappropriate advantage, [or] change the standard to provide for a disclose and manage approach,” FASEA said.

Commenting on the news, AFA acting chief executive Phil Anderson said the association was pleased FASEA was showing a commitment to being willing to consult and take action to fix Standard 3.

“We’ve been outspoken over a long time about Standard 3 not being practical,” Mr Anderson said.

“In this document [FASEA] have referred to feedback they’ve got on how to fix it and they’ve talked about being willing to refine it.”

Mr Anderson said the AFA’s preferred option was to revert to the original wording of the draft standard, which referred to inappropriate advantage rather than all conflicts of interest.

“That way there’s a measure there that it’s got to be inappropriate, it’s not just any benefit that may result from a conflict of interest,” he said.

“That’s one of the options, and I’m sure that through the consultation process we can work through what the best options are.”