ASIC collects nearly $200m in civil penalties in last financial year

In its 2020–21 annual report released on Friday, the corporate regulator confirmed $189.4 million in civil penalties and a 28 per cent increase in new criminal litigation.

The figure is a substantial increase on last year’s report, in which ASIC secured $24.9 million.

However, total Australian Financial Services (AFS) licences cancelled or suspended in 2020–21 was reported as 308, down from 333 in the 2019–20 report.

Also, 873 licence applications are still in progress.

Fifty-three new criminal litigation cases commenced in the last financial year, up from 41 on 2019–20. However, the total dollar value of fines from criminal outcomes was reported at $151,100, down from $731,650.

ASIC chair Joe Longo said the regulator is committed to supporting the Australian economy through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Across the financial year, ASIC made targeted interventions and implemented a number of relief measures to assist Australia’s corporate sector, while also making great strides towards implementing the financial services royal commission reforms,” Mr Longo said.

“In addition to this important work, in 2020–21, ASIC finalised many of the enforcement matters arising from the royal commission and increased its enforcement action generally.”

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.