NO.095

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

TREASURER &

PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURER

Government Provides Extra Funding For Corporate Law Initiatives

The Government has allocated over $3 million in additional funding to support corporate law initiatives, from the interest generated on the Companies and Unclaimed Moneys Special Account.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission will receive:

• an additional $1.9 million to fund a secondment programme between ASIC, Treasury, financial services industry markets and international regulators of comparable jurisdictions; and
• an additional $260,000 to support initiatives to increase cooperation with international regulators. 

The Australian Accounting Standards Board will receive:

• an additional $400,000 over two years to maintain Australia’s funding contribution to the International Accounting Standards Board; and
• an additional $300,000 to fund a project to support automated online compilations of accounting standards.

The Takeovers Panel will receive an additional $45,000 to fund the development of a searchable database and indexing framework.

Furthermore, $100,000 has been allocated to Treasury to partner with the National Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra on a research project into best practice corporate governance arrangements for small corporations.

This significant allocation of resources to these initiatives will assist in a reduction of costs to businesses and improve the regulatory framework.

CANBERRA

19 September 2007