An address by Jeffrey Lucy AM, Chairman, ASIC, to the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association National Conference 2005, 10 November 2005, Melbourne.
I'd like to briefly discuss the importance of strong governance frameworks, the duties and responsibilities of the Board, company directors and management, and the importance of robust and reliable financial reporting in today's global business environment. The role of management and company directors is crucial to ensuring that financial reports accurately reflect the true financial position of a company and, more particularly, that those financial statements are clear of material financial fraud.
Undetected financial fraud is one of the greatest risks to an organisation's viability and corporate reputation, and it has the capacity to draw into its sphere all associated people, not only the guilty. It has been a fundamental factor in many of the corporate scandals we have witnessed over recent years and it is also an area in which ASIC and myself have a keen interest. For my part, I'd also like to see it receive due attention by corporations and their advisers.
Indeed, one of ASIC's key goals over the next 5 years, is to strengthen the integrity of Australian corporations by acting against corporate and financial fraud and misconduct by company directors and officers. I'll therefore spend the majority of my time here this afternoon raising with you some of the challenges I see before us in the fight against material financial fraud.