ASIC has announced its enforcement priorities in 2025 and its approach to breach self-reporting.

ASIC will focus on:

• Misconduct exploiting superannuation savings
• Unscrupulous property investment schemes
• Failures by insurers to deal fairly and in good faith with customers
• Strengthening investigation and prosecution of insider trading
• Business models designed to avoid consumer credit protections
• Misconduct impacting small businesses and their creditors
• Debt management and collection misconduct
• Licensee failures to have adequate cyber-security protections
• Greenwashing and misleading conduct involving ESG claims
• Member services failures in the superannuation sector
• Auditor misconduct; and 
• Used car finance sold to vulnerable consumers by finance providers.

ASIC has confirmed that its enduring priorities will target:

• Misconduct damaging market integrity including insider trading, continuous disclosure breaches and market manipulation
• Misconduct impacting First Nations people
• Misconduct involving a high risk of significant consumer harm particularly conduct targeting financially vulnerable consumers
• Systemic compliance failures by large financial institutions resulting in widespread consumer harm
• New or emerging conduct risks within the financial system
• Governance and directors’ duties failures.

Self-reporting and ASIC Enforcement

In a recent speech, ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said:

“a report to ASIC is the beginning of the process, not its conclusion. Sometimes a self-report is followed by an internal review, or an externally commissioned independent report. At some stage we will be told about the outcome of such a review. More often than not, a privilege claim is made over its contents. We are assured though that there is nothing more for us to see.

Of course, we do not accept that assurance…. We are sceptical of what is put to us, and with good reason. There is often a good deal more to see than what is reported to us, and we will generally conduct our own investigation and make our own assessment of the misconduct. Even where there is full and prompt disclosure and remediation, it may well be appropriate for a court to determine what contravention of the law has occurred, and what appropriate penalty should be imposed.”

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Author: David Jacobson
Principal, Bright Corporate Law
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About David Jacobson
The information contained in this article is not legal advice. It is not to be relied upon as a full statement of the law. You should seek professional advice for your specific needs and circumstances before acting or relying on any of the content.