Following public consultation, ASIC today made two new legislative instruments to replace three class orders that were due to expire (‘sunset’) between 1 October 2015 and 1 October 2017.

ASIC remade these class orders without significant changes before they sunset, so that their ongoing effect is preserved without any disruption to the entities who rely on them.

Read more about sunsetting class orders

Distribution of basic deposit and insurance products

ASIC has made the ASIC Corporations (Basic Deposit and General Insurance Product Distribution) Instrument 2015/682, which provides relief from the requirement for an Australian financial services licensee to appoint a distributor of a basic deposit product or general insurance product as its authorised representative.

This relief was previously provided by two separate class orders: Class Order [CO 04/909] Agency banking (due to sunset on 1 October 2017) and Class Order [CO 05/1070] General insurance distributors (due to sunset on 1 April 2016).

Miscellaneous disclosure relief for deposit products

ASIC has also made the ASIC Corporations (Deposit Product Disclosure) Instrument 2015/683, which removes the requirements to include an interest rate in a Product Disclosure Statement and a termination value in a periodic statement for deposit products.

This relief was previously provided by Class Order [CO 05/681] Transitional relief for deposit product providers—PDSs and periodic statements, which was due to sunset on 1 October 2015.

Consultation process

On 26 May 2015, ASIC released Consultation Paper 230 Remaking ASIC class orders relating to banking and insurance (CP 230), which outlined our proposals to remake [CO 04/909], [CO 05/681] and [CO 05/1070] with minor changes, including:

• combining [CO 04/909] and [CO 05/1070] into a single instrument
• updating the name, format, legislative references and definitions, and 
• simplifying and modernising the drafting to make the new instruments easier to understand.

CP 230 also outlined ASIC’s proposal to repeal Class Order [CO 06/623] Relief for certain general insurers from s981B account requirements on the basis that relief provided by this class order is otherwise available under the ordinary operation of the Corporations Act.  ASIC has now repealed [CO 06/623] (along with the other class orders that have been remade).

ASIC received three submissions in response to CP 230. All submissions received supported some or all of ASIC’s proposals and no concerns were identified.

Download

ASIC Corporations (Basic Deposit and General Insurance Product Distribution) Instrument 2015/682

ASIC Corporations (Deposit Product Disclosure) Instrument 2015/683

ASIC Corporations (Repeal) Instrument 2015/684

Background

Under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003, all class orders are repealed automatically or ‘sunset’ after a specified period of time (mostly 10 years) unless we take action to exempt or preserve them. This ensures that legislative instruments like class orders are kept up to date and only remain in force while they are fit for purpose and relevant.

All government organisations are responsible for considering whether the legislative instruments they have made that are due to sunset will be relevant after their sunset date.