The Corporations Amendment (Meetings and Documents) Bill 2021 (Bill) passed the Senate on Thursday 10 February 2022.

The time to apply for a director identification number (Director ID) is almost upon us. Under the 2020 Budget Digital Business plan, the Federal Government announced the establishment of the new Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS).

The Federal Government has released draft versions of legislation and regulations to strengthen consumer protection laws.  The changes would give effect to proposals contained in the 2017 Australian Consumer Law (ACL) Review Final Report agreed to by Commonwealth, State and Territory Consumer Affairs Ministers last year.  The public has until the end of February to submit views on the draft changes. 

In the space of a fortnight, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has commenced two sets of proceedings in the Federal Court against large Australian businesses, claiming breaches of the unfair contract provisions applicable to standard form small business contracts contained in the Australian Consumer Law.

The Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding for Proprietary Companies) Bill 2017 was introduced into Parliament on 14 September 2017.  If passed, as is expected, the Bill will extend the reach of the Crowd-sourced Equity Funding (CSEF) legislation that will at this stage apply only to public companies from 29 September 2017.