Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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CORPORATIONS (FEES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1992 NO. 236

Statutory Rules 1992 No. 236

Issued by the Authority of the Attorney-General

Corporations Act 1989

Corporations (Fees) Regulations (Amendment)

Section 22 of the Corporations Act 1989 (the Act) empowers the Governor-General to make regulations not inconsistent with the Act or the Corporations Law (the Law) prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Law to be prescribed by the regulations or necessary or convenient to be prescribed by regulations for carrying out or giving effect to the Law.

2.        Section 25 of the Act provides that the regulations may prescribe fees (including fees that are taxes) for chargeable matters. Chargeable matters are defined in section 9 of the Law as:

(a)       the lodgment, registration or submission (for examination) of documents;

(b)       the inspection or search of registers kept by, or documents in the custody of, the Australian Securities Commission (the Commission), the production of such registers or document pursuant to a subpoena, and the issuing of documents or copies of documents; and

(c)       the making of inquiries or applications (of or to the Minister or the Commission) and the granting of licences, consents or approvals (by the Minister or the Commission).

3.        Subsection 26(2) of the Act provides that where a fee is prescribed as a stated amount that amount is not to exceed $5,000 while subsection 26(3) of the Act provides that two or more fees may be prescribed for the same chargeable matter.

4.        Subsection 1352(1) of the Law adds the further provision that the upper limit on the aggregate amount of fees payable for a chargeable matter is $25,000.

5.        The purpose of the Regulations is to amend the Corporations (Fees) Regulations by substituting a new Schedule of fees for the Schedule that came into operation on 1 January 1991. The fees in the new Schedule have, in general, been increased in line with the movement in the Consumer Price Index between the December quarter of 1990 and the March quarter of 1992 (i.e. 1.5 per cent).

6.        Details of the accompanying Regulations are as follows.

Regulation 1 : Commencement

7.        This regulation sets 1 August 1992 as the commencement date for these amending Regulations.

Regulation 2: Amendment

8.        This regulation provides that the Regulations amend the Corporations (Fees) Regulations.

Regulation 3 : Schedule (Prescribed fees)

9.        This regulation amends the Corporations (Fees) Regulations by inserting a new Schedule of fees that are payable for the purposes of the Act.

10.        The new Schedule, in general, provides for the following levels of fees:

Existing             Fee ($)	Proposed             Fee ($)	Existing             Fee ($)	Proposed             Fee ($)
1,200     1,000     890     600     540     450     380     370     300     210     185     40     30     25     22     20     16	1,220     1,015     905     610     550     455     385     375     305     215     188     41     30     25     22     20     16	150     145     120     100     90     85     80     65     60     50     45     12     11     10     9     6     2	152     142     122     102     91     86     81     66     61     51     46     12     11     10     9     6     2

11. These fees were obtained by increasing existing fees by 1.5 per cent (being the increase in the Consumer Price Index between the December quarter of 1990 and the March quarter of 1992) and, in the case of fees of more than $200, rounding to the nearest $5.

12. Fees for the matters listed below were not dealt with in accordance with the above formula.

(a)       Fees will not be payable for the lodgment of a supplementary prospectus or for searching indexes of registers maintained by the ASC where the search is made using a computer terminal located in an ASC office. In addition, the existing supplementary fee that applies where information is requested other than in person has been omitted.

(b)       Fees for applications in respect of using restricted words in company names, certain fundraising and takeover matters and for lodgment of takeover documents, trust deeds and occupational licensing applications and documents have been increased by more than 1.5 per cent to reduce the gap between the existing fees and the cost of processing such applications and documents.