The Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding for Proprietary Companies) Bill 2017 was introduced into the House of Representatives on 14 September 2017.

UPDATE: Passed by House of Representatives on 26 February 2018 and introduced into the Senate on 19 March 2018.

Passed both Houses on 12 September 2018. Royal assent was given on 21 September 2018.

UPDATE: Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Regulations 2018 registered on 28/09/2018

In anticipation of passage of the Bill in 2018 Treasury has released exposure draft regulations providing further detail on the extension of the crowd-sourced funding (CSF) framework to proprietary companies. Background.

The draft regulations provide that the exemption from the takeover rules for CSF proprietary companies will be limited to companies that are still eligible to make a CSF offer, as it would be inappropriate for proprietary companies that out-grow the CSF framework to continue to be exempt from the takeover rules in perpetuity. The draft regulations also modify the unsolicited offer provisions in the Corporations Act, which apply to all companies, to make these more flexible for proprietary companies with CSF shareholders.

The draft regulations also make refinements to the existing CSF regime for public companies, to add flexibility to the structure and contents of CSF offer documents in addition to requiring disclosure relevant to the proprietary companies, and make other minor changes to clarify the operation of the existing rules.