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CS 45 Proposed remake and sunset of financial reporting-related legislative instruments

simple consultation – 45

Released 30 January 2026. Comments close 27 February 2026.

ASIC is seeking feedback on its proposals to remake three legislative instruments relating to financial reporting relief and to allow another legislative instrument relating to offer information statements to expire, or sunset. All four legislative instruments are scheduled to sunset on 1 April 2026.

Proposal to remake three instruments

ASIC proposes to remake the following legislative instruments:

We have assessed these instruments and determined that they are operating effectively and efficiently. Consequently, they continue to form a necessary and useful part of the legislative framework.

Under our proposal, the effect of these instruments will remain unchanged, and we will only make minor amendments to ensure the instruments are up-to-date and align with ASIC’s current drafting style.

Draft replacement instruments are available under Related Links below.

We also propose to withdraw Regulatory Guide 28 Relief from dual lodgement of financial reports (RG 28). RG 28 provides redundant guidance about dual lodgement relief that preceded ASIC Instrument 2016/181. Guidance about dual lodgement is now available on the ASIC website: see Company financial reports and Lodgement of financial reports.

Proposal to allow instrument to sunset

ASIC is also seeking feedback on its proposal to allow ASIC Corporations (Offer Information Statements) Instrument 2016/76 to sunset on 1 April 2026. This means the instrument will cease to operate and entities will no longer be able to rely on it.

In our experience, offer information statements (OIS) are used very rarely and the likelihood that a financial report included in an OIS is not a report for a 12-month period is very remote.

The four instruments impacted by our proposal were part of the draft proposed instrument consolidation at Attachment B to Report 813 Regulatory simplification (REP 813). We are currently considering feedback on this and will provide an update later in 2026.

Under the Legislation Act 2003, all legislative instruments automatically sunset after 10 years, unless ASIC takes action to preserve them.

A consultation paper was not issued for this consultation.

Providing feedback

We invite feedback on our proposals from industry and interested stakeholders. You should send your submission to rri.consultation@asic.gov.au by 5 pm AEDT on Friday 27 February 2026.

You may choose to remain anonymous or use an alias when providing feedback. However, if you do remain anonymous, we will not be able to contact you to discuss your feedback should we need to.

We will not treat your feedback as confidential unless you specifically request that we treat the whole or part of it (such as any personal or financial information) as confidential.

Please see our privacy policy for more information on how we handle personal information, your rights to seek access to and correct personal information, and your right to complain about breaches of privacy by ASIC.

Background

ASIC Instrument 2016/191 allows entities to round amounts presented in financial reports and directors’ reports to at least the nearest thousand dollars. The extent to which rounding is allowed may vary depending on the nature or amount of the item being disclosed.

ASIC Instrument 2016/181 allows entities listed on securities exchanges operated by the ASX Limited ACN 008 624 691(ASX), National Stock Exchange of Australia Limited ACN 000 902 063 (NSX) and Sydney Stock Exchange Limited ACN 080 399 220 (SSX) to lodge financial reports, sustainability reports and directors’ reports electronically with the relevant market operator without also having to separately lodge the reports with ASIC.

ASIC Instrument 2016/76 enables the period for the financial report included in an offer information statement to be longer or shorter than 12 months by up to seven days.

ASIC Instrument 2016/73 allows entities to prepare a disclosure document or product disclosure statement (PDS) for continuously quoted securities under sections 713 and 1013FA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act) and to lodge ‘cleansing notices’ under sections 708A and 1012DA of the Corporations Act even when the entity, its director or auditor are covered by ASIC instruments listed in the instrument. The coverage of these instruments would ordinarily disqualify the relevant securities from being continuously quoted securities as defined in section 9 of the Corporations Act.

RG 28 sets out arrangements for dual lodgements pursuant to the redundant ASIC Class Order [CO 98/104].

Related links