Welcome to this week’s issue of the KHQ Super Alert. This week the Federal Court determined that documents produced in accordance with ASIC notices will not attract legal professional privilege in some circumstances, and the ATO updated its guidance in relation to wind-up obligations for APRA-regulated funds.
Parliament – Economics Committee hearings
On 10 September 2020, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics heard from several superannuation funds as part of its public hearings into the financial sector. The focus of the hearing was to review the operations of some funds during the pandemic and to monitor the ‘progress on implementing relevant recommendations from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry’.
Click here for details.
ATO – winding–up an APRA fund
On 7 September 2020, the ATO updated its online guidance in relation to an RSE licensee’s obligations when winding-up an APRA-regulated fund. The ATO has listed a number of regulatory obligations, income tax obligations and fund reporting obligations for trustees to consider in these circumstances.
Click here for details.
Federal Court – waiver of legal professional privilege
On 4 September 2020, the Federal Court of Australia handed down its decision in relation to a legal professional privilege claim relating to an ASIC investigation. In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v RI Advice Group Pty Ltd [2020] FCA 1277, the Federal Court determined that the legal privilege exemption in section 118 of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) did not operate in this case to prevent documents being adduced in evidence at a hearing.
The Court came to this view on the basis that:
- there was insufficient evident to determine that the dominant purpose of the document was to provide legal advice; and
- ‘the production, without objection…of multiple copies of the [relevant documents] in response to ASIC’s November 2018 notice to produce is as clear a case of waiver as one could imagine, short of an express waiver’.
Click here for details.