The Corporate Sector is no better than the Bureaucracy when it comes to accountability.
ASIC argue they can’t process all the complaints that come their way and that victims of white collar crime should litigate.
The problem with that of course is that people who have been ripped off can’t afford the legal fees and there is no guarantee of success in court.
A better idea would be if people started getting locked up for committing crimes it might act as a deterrent for others.
But as usual the people who should be doing something about it I.e. the regulators do nothing about it.
ASIC need to get tougher on white collar crime.
Committee on 4/06/2024
Item: Economics Legislation Committee – 04/06/2024 – Estimates – and – TREASURY PORTFOLIO – Australian Securities and Investments Commission
Senator RENNICK: Hi, guys. I’ve been contacted by a few constituents who have lodged complaints with ASIC over corporate behaviour. The reply that they received was that they should seek legal advice and litigate themselves. The constituents have complained about that to me, saying, ‘Well, I can’t afford to get legal advice,’ because they’ve already lost money. Often with legal proceedings you don’t know how long a piece of string is. Given that ASIC already receives taxpayer funding, how do you decide when ASIC is going to pursue a company for illegitimate behaviour versus letting the shareholder pursue the company?
Mr Longo : I’ll go through a couple of broad propositions before I hand over to Deputy Chair Court. We’re actually industry funded. We’re not taxpayer funded. Secondly, if there are particular constituents that have raised concerns with you, and you’re not happy with the way we’ve handled them, we’re always open to you communicating with us offline, and we’ll have a look. The third thing is that we’re not a complaints-handing authority. We get thousands of complaints, issues and matters brought to our attention each year. A tiny fraction can be resourced for action or investigation. Indeed, there’s another inquiry going on to which we’ve made multiple submissions trying to explain that, with a staff of 1,800 people at ASIC and getting over 10,000 complaints a year, if you do the maths you can see immediately that only a tiny fraction of those matters can inform our enforcement activity. We are happy to hear about the rest of the matters, and they inform our overall prioritisation. That’s like a short version of a response.
Senator RENNICK: I’ll just follow up on that, because you’re right—I understand you do get lots of complaints. Do you think you need to be a little bit more punitive on some of this white-collar crime to send a message that it’s not okay?
