The civil penalties around company phoenix activity impacting superannuation guarantee payments are still very modest and reflect 1993 standards, according to Melbourne Law School professor, Helen Anderson.
Appearing before a public hearing of the Parliamentary Committee inquiring into the non-payment of the superannuation guarantee, Professor Anderson referred to the findings of an inter-agency report on the regulation of fraudulent phoenix activity.
She said that report had made the point that the civil penalties relating to such activity were still very modest.
“They are still at their 1993 level. We think that those should be increased,” Professor Anderson said.
However she said one the major recommendations with respect to enforcement was the need to “tweak of the Corporations Act to allow the liquidator or (the Australian Securities and Investments Commission) ASIC to bring an action to recoup from the newly created company the value of assets transferred across or any benefit that they have received”.
“Once again, we believe that phoenix exists because it is easy, it is cheap, it is invisible and it is incredibly profitable. So you just have to target those things and you will significantly take away the incentive towards phoenix activity,” Anderson said.
“If you could recover from the new company, which is obviously a separate legal entity, the value of what they have received from the old company that would perhaps disrupt and make phoenix just not worth the while,” she said.
Michael Lovett, who left the investment firm just three months after launching its Vanguard Super offering, has taken up a chief executive role at an Australian asset manager.
The Central Bank of Ireland has granted the approval of Equity Trustees’ exit from its Irish operations, with the transaction expected to be complete on 30 April.
Super returns continued to climb in March, raising hopes of delivering double-digit returns by June depending on the performance of this next quarter.
The dedicated super fund for emergency services and Victorian government employees is under fire for unpaid entitlements to transport employees, which could exceed $40 million.
Add new comment