Submission to ASIC on consultation paper 128 Handling Confidential Information

This consultation paper contains ASIC’s proposals for best practice relating to the handling of confidential information, primarily in the context of capital raisings and mergers and acquisitions. Whilst AICD supports the focus of the Paper, we are concerned that some of the proposals may not be proportionate to the perceived risk or likelihood of market misconduct and that the cost to business especially for smaller companies may outweigh the benefits of such an approach. We are also concerned with the way the proposals are framed as “best practice guidelines”. Such types of guidelines sometimes effectively become regulation and a director failing to comply with the guidelines could be seen as lacking the appropriate due care required of their position. This would be an inappropriate outcome given there is already law and regulation that prescribe such conduct

AICD submission to ASIC on Consultation Paper 128 Handling Confidential Information