media release (17-090MR)

ASIC extends the relief provided for business introduction services for two years

Published

ASIC has extended Class Order [CO 02/273]  Business introduction or matching services [CO 02/273] for two years. The class order was due to expire (sunset) on 1 April 2017.

[CO 02/273] gives conditional relief from the fundraising, financial product disclosure, hawking and advertising requirements in the Corporations Act (the Act) that would otherwise apply to a person making or calling attention to offers of securities or interests in a registered managed investment scheme through a business introduction service.

ASIC Corporations (Repeal and Transitional) Instrument 2017/186 extends the relief in [CO 02/273] in the same form for two years so that we can review and consult on the policy settings of our relief.

The review is necessary because of recent amendments to the Act which introduce a new framework to facilitate crowd-sourced funding offers by small unlisted public companies. This new regime in the Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Act 2017 commences later this year.

The extension of the class order relief for two years will provide certainty until the new regime commences. It will also allow ASIC to evaluate how the regime will interact with the relief in [CO 02/273].

ASIC will consult publicly on its relief for business introduction services before 1 April 2019.

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Sunsetting class orders

Under the Legislation Act 2003, all class orders are repealed automatically or 'sunset' after a period of time (mostly 10 years) unless we take action to preserve them. This ensures that legislative instruments like class orders are kept up to date and only remain in force while they are fit for purpose and relevant.

All government organisations are responsible for considering whether the legislative instruments they have made that are due to sunset will be relevant after their sunset date. 

Read more about sunsetting class orders.

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