Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES AND INVESTMENTS COMMISSION ACT 2001 - SECT 1

  (1)   The objects of this Act are:

  (a)   to provide for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission ( ASIC ) which will administer such laws of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory as confer functions and powers under those laws on ASIC; and

  (b)   to provide for ASIC's functions, powers and business; and

  (d)   to establish a Takeovers Panel, a Companies Auditors Disciplinary Board, a Financial Reporting Council, an Australian Accounting Standards Board, an Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

  (2)   In performing its functions and exercising its powers, ASIC must strive to:

  (a)   maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system and the entities within that system in the interests of commercial certainty, reducing business costs, and the efficiency and development of the economy; and

  (b)   promote the confident and informed participation of investors and consumers in the financial system; and

  (d)   administer the laws that confer functions and powers on it effectively and with a minimum of procedural requirements; and

  (e)   receive, process and store, efficiently and quickly, the information given to ASIC under the laws that confer functions and powers on it; and

  (f)   ensure that information is available as soon as practicable for access by the public; and

  (g)   take whatever action it can take, and is necessary, in order to enforce and give effect to the laws of the Commonwealth that confer functions and powers on it.

  (2A)   Without limiting subsection   (2), ASIC must consider the effects that the performance of its functions and the exercise of its powers will have on competition in the financial system.

  (3)   This Act has effect, and is to be interpreted, accordingly.