The Corporations Amendment Regulation 2013 (No.5) contains the final exceptions to the FOFA ban on conflicted remuneration (in addition to Section 1528 Corporations Act) which commences on 1 July 2013.
The Regulation outlines the application of the ban on conflicted remuneration as follows:
- for benefits paid by platform operators, the ban will apply in relation to new clients from 1 July 2014; and for non-platform providers, the ban will apply in relation to new clients and investments in new products by existing clients from 1 July 2014;
- for benefits paid to employees under an enterprise agreement in force immediately prior to 1 July 2013, the ban will apply from six months after the nominal expiry date (NED) of the agreement (or 1 July 2014 for those agreements which passed their NED before 1 July 2013); and
- for benefits paid to employees under non-enterprise agreements, the ban will apply from 1 July 2014.
In addition, the Regulation excludes the following benefits from the ban on conflicted remuneration:
- benefits made in relation to the purchase or sale of a financial advice business and the payment of these benefits to third parties on or after the commencement of the ban that result from an arrangement entered into before 1 July 2013; and
- grandfathered benefits that are passed onto other parties that were not subject to the agreement which gave rise to the grandfathered benefit (but which the passed-on benefit is given under a pre-application day arrangement), for example, an authorised representative or a financial adviser who is an employee of a licensee or authorised representative.