Legislation imposing AML obligations on legal practitioners, accountants, insolvency and restructuring practitioners, conveyancers, real estate agents, consultants, financial planners, wealth advisors, business brokers, company secretarial service providers and trust and company service providers has made its way to the Senate. It is likely to have effect from March 2026.
ARITA’s submissions that insolvency professionals were already highly regulated and did not require more unpaid compliance work were ineffective.
The legislation focuses on the service rather than the profession that performs it and includes, amongst other things:
The sale, purchase or transfer of real estate or companies
Receiving, holding or controlling money, accounts or securities
Organising, planning or executing a transaction
Planning, executing or acting in restructuring a company.
It appears that at least these 4 services would impose obligations on insolvency professionals carrying out their everyday duties. Typical of recent insolvency law reform, the act seems to be written without a fundamental understanding of what insolvency professionals actually do. That, together with the service focus, results in a vague, difficult to interpret bill with inconsistent applications which I shall explore in future posts.
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