ASIC slaps AMP with $100,000 finale - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

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ASIC slaps AMP with $100,000 finale
March 28 2003
By Sharon Kemp

AMP has negotiated a $100,000 finale to an Australian Securities and Investments Commission investigation into the company`s bungled disclosure of its UK woes.

The stir created when AMP disclosed in a prospectus last July that the capital levels at its Pearl operation in the UK were below regulatory requirements cost former chief executive Paul Batchelor his job. AMP had previously denied that Pearl`s capital levels were too low.

The financial services group has been a repeat offender against continuous disclosure regulations. It was the subject of a separate ASIC investigation over a similar charge a year earlier, in 2001.

The settlement for the most recent breach is a $100,000 AMP-funded training program designed to teach company officers and executives awareness of market disclosure and governance rules. Ironically, ASIC will not require AMP executives to attend the training.

Without accepting blame, AMP conceded yesterday that it could have disclosed the state of Pearl`s capital position more effectively.


Mr Batchelor denied to shareholders and the media that any of AMP`s UK operations were breaching regulatory capital requirements in Great Britain while simultaneously announcing a capital raising.

A prospectus, on the other hand, places a legal obligation on directors to disclose matters of significance to potential investors. Any breach makes directors liable and at risk of legal action.

"We acknowledge we could have done better . . . and we think this is an appropriate way to bring (the investigation) to an end," AMP spokeswoman Karen Munsie said yesterday.

She said new management at AMP assembled by Mr Batchelor`s replacement, Andrew Mohl, had reviewed and improved disclosure practices.

ASIC deputy executive director of enforcement Jan Redfern agreed that AMP had "lifted its game" under Mr Mohl`s leadership. "We saw (the specific disclosure matter at the centre of ASIC`s investigation) as more of an historical issue," she added.

In what was interpreted as a message to the Federal Government, ASIC chairman David Knott said the regulator and AMP had agreed that the sum of $100,000 would have been an appropriate fine.

ASIC has no power to fine, and companies argue against such a move, but Mr Knott is lobbying the Federal Government to be given powers to create and enforce a fining regime.

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