CLARS Law & Business Seminar Series: Role & Effectiveness of ASIC v the SEC

Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) regulatory oversight of securities and financial markets increased considerably over time. However, the wisdom of this model has most recently been challenged by the Hayne Royal Commission as ASIC’s enforcement activities were found to be relatively toothless. Accordingly, many criticised the agency and called for further ASIC reform.

After the Global Financial Crisis, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) faced the same criticisms of regulatory failure seen today at ASIC. Despite massive criticisms of the SEC’s failure to sufficiently enforce regulations both before and after the Global Financial Crisis, the SEC regulatory structure and enforcement trends over the last decade can provide insight for implementation of further ASIC reform.

Dr Eroglu will discuss her research that analyses the SEC regulatory structure, enforcement activities, and governmental resources and then compares certain indicators of effectiveness such as the number of employees, budgets, and enforcement activities with those of ASIC over the past quarter-century.

By comparing ASIC with the world’s biggest capital market regulator, the SEC, this session analyses the viability of further reform of ASIC, and argues that ASIC is woefully under-resourced to engage in increased enforcement action.

Note: This session will take place on Zoom.

Order of events

4.30pm Welcome by Jennifer Hill opening

4.35pm Zehra G Kavame Eroglu speaks

5.10pm Commentator Cathie Armour speaks

5.30pm Q&A with audience

5.45pm Event ends

Speakers

Dr. Zehra G. Kavame Eroglu, Director of the Master of Professional Accounting and Law, Deakin Law School

Dr. Zehra G. Kavame Eroglu is a Lecturer (Corporate Law and Finance Law) and Director of the Master of Professional Accounting and Law at Deakin Law School. Before moving to Australia, she was located in New York where she completed her LLM (Columbia Law School) and SJD (Fordham Law School) in addition to working as a Postdoctoral Research Scholar (Columbia Law School). She taught Comparative Corporate Law and Comparative Financial Reporting (Fordham Law School) and Corporate Law (Swiss International Law School).

Commentator: Cathie Armour, Commissioner, ASIC

Cathie Armour is one of the Commissioners of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission ("ASIC"). The Commission is responsible for ASIC's performance as Australia's integrated corporate, financial markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator.

Cathie chairs ASIC's Regulatory Issues Committee which focuses on ASIC’s supervisory work. Cathie also works closely with the ASIC teams responsible for regulating market infrastructure, market surveillance, supervision of market intermediaries and the enforcement of laws relating to market integrity.

Cathie's experience before ASIC was in legal counsel leadership roles in international financial institutions. She was General Counsel for Macquarie Capital and an Executive Director of Macquarie Group. She began her career in private legal practice and has worked for law firms in Sydney and New York.

Cathie is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She is also a member of Chief Executive Women.

Moderator: Professor Jennifer Hill, Bob Baxt AO Chair, Monash Law & Director of CLARS

Professor Jennifer Hill is the inaugural Bob Baxt AO Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law at Monash University Faculty of Law and is the Director of the Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies (CLARS). Jennifer is an internationally recognised legal scholar in the field of comparative corporate law and governance.

Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Sydney (BA LLB (Hons) and the University of Oxford (BCL). She is a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and has held visiting teaching and research positions at leading international institutions, including the University of Cambridge; Cornell University; Duke University; NYU Law School; University of Virginia, University of Texas, and Vanderbilt University Law School.

Contact us

Name: Janice Hugo

E-Mail: janice.hugo@monash.edu

Phone: 03 9905 3327