Exposure Draft - FOFA Amendments

Senator the Hon Arthur Sinodinos AO released draft legislation and draft regulations for consultation to implement the Government's election commitment to amend the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) legislation.

On 20 December 2013, Senator the Hon Arthur Sinodinos AO announced a package of changes to FOFA, including:

• removing the opt-in requirements;
• removing the annual fee disclosure requirements for pre-1 July 2013 clients;
• removing the 'catch-all' provision from the best interests duty;
• explicitly allowing for the provision of scaled advice;
• exempting general advice from the ban on conflicted remuneration; and
• broadening the existing grandfathering provisions for the ban on conflicted remuneration.

The Government's intended approach is that time sensitive amendments will be dealt with through regulations, to the extent allowed under the relevant regulation-making powers, and then locked into legislation. Further detail is provided in the explanatory material to the draft legislation and draft regulations.

Consultation Documents

Submissions

Submissions to this consultation closed on 19 February 2014.

Fifty seven submissions have been received in response to this consultation. Seven of these submissions were confidential. The public submissions are listed below.

The opinions expressed in the submissions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government or The Treasury.