Handbook

The course considers the main techniques of financial regulation: disclosure, licensing, prohibitions of market misconduct, self regulation and powers of investigation and enforcement. It considers the rules and practices constituting financial regulation, the market institutions and regulatory context in which it operates and the additional insights we gain from contemporary regulatory studies. The course tackles current issues in financial regulation such as the impact on law of product and market convergence, intermediary conglomeration, globalization, use of computer and telecommunications and responses to recent ethical failures in financial services.

Main Topics

• Institutions and sources of Australian financial regulation
• The nature and effect of regulation and the main theoretical perspectives on regulation
• What are we regulating: financial products, financial markets and financial services
• Prospectus and retail disclosure
• Licensing of financial markets and intermediaries
• Customer agreements: traditional advisory and with online brokers
• Market manipulation
• Regulator's remedies: criminal, civil penalties and enforceable undertakings
• Plaintiff's remedies: curial actions, industry based dispute resolution
• Financial regulation in future