Treasury has released for consultation draft Treasury Laws Amendment (ASIC Cost Recovery and Fees) Regulations 2019 which:
• create a new subsector of “significant financial institutions” to enable ASIC to recover its regulatory costs incurred from its close and continuous monitoring of Australia’s largest institutions ; and
• exempt journalists from paying certain registry search fees, from 1 July 2019.

An entity falls into the close and continuous monitoring subsector in the financial years beginning on 1 July 2018 and 1 July 2019 if:

• the total value of deposits issued by the entity as at 1 July 2018 is at least $100 billion; or
• there are 1,000 or more providers registered on the Register of Relevant Providers on 1 July 2018 to provide personal advice to retail clients on behalf of the entity.

Under this formula, ASIC’s regulatory costs for the subsector will be shared equally between all entities that meet the requirements as at 1 July 2018. ASIC will prescribe the number of entities that are part of the subsector as part of its annual legislative instrument.

Journalists will be exempt from paying certain search fees in relation to ASIC registry searches. The term journalist is not a defined term for the purposes of the Regulations. The intention is that this will cover journalists working in a professional capacity for media organisations and freelance journalists who regularly sell stories to media organisations or publish stories on a commercial basis. The ordinary meaning of journalist does not cover bloggers who blog in their free time or as a hobby and does not include non-journalistic entities including social media platforms.

ASIC will have a process to periodically review the journalists’ credentials.