ASIC has confirmed how it will publish two public-facing dashboards containing internal dispute resolution (IDR) and reportable situations (RS) data, following consultation with industry.
Gilbert + Tobin made a confidential submission on this proposal on behalf of a large number of clients. ASIC’s summary of feedback and responses is available here.
Key takeaways
After careful consideration of the feedback received, ASIC has decided not to proceed with its initial proposal to publish firm-level RS data. This means that the licensees names will not be included in the RS data dashboard. Instead, ASIC will publish aggregate-level RS data only.
We consider ASIC’s decision not to publish firm-level RS data a win for industry. In our submission, we raised concerns that publishing firm-level RS data could unfairly disadvantage firms meeting their reporting obligations, discourage compliance, encourage underreporting or prompt litigation funders to act on breaches that firms are legally required to report to ASIC. ASIC explained that, in making this decision, it sought to balance the benefits of firm-level transparency against concerns around the maturity of the RS regime. Several submissions noted that, given recent changes to licensees’ reporting obligations following ASIC’s regulatory relief in July, more time is needed for the regime and reporting practices to mature before firm-level data is published.
ASIC will proceed with plans to publish IDR data at firm-level, but has made key changes to how the data will be presented, including around complainant privacy, data comparisons and explanatory material to support contextualisation.
The data will now be published as follows:
RS data | ASIC will publish aggregated, industry-level RS data only. Users will be able to draw insights into the nature and impact of breaches reported and how industry is identifying and responding to those breaches. Firm-level RS data will not be published, and so the names of licensees and their licence numbers will not be published. | |
IDR data | ASIC will publish aggregated, industry-level IDR data, as well IDR data at firm-level. ASIC notes that publishing firm-level IDR data is consistent with the purpose of the IDR data collection regime and aligns with the existing publication of firm-level external dispute resolution data by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Demographic data, including complainant type, gender and age, will not be published at firm-level in light of privacy and sensitivity considerations. |
What next?
ASIC is set to publish the RS dashboard in October, with the IDR dashboard to be published later this year.