CLARS Law and Business Seminar: Expansion of Regulation: New Sectors, New Responsibilities
Australia and the United Kingdom are rapidly expanding regulatory regimes, placing new monitoring and compliance obligations on businesses and boards. This CLARS Law and Business Seminar brings these developments into conversation to examine what they mean in practice for accountability, governance and regulatory risk. Join us for a fascinating discussion of how far these obligations are reaching, and why they matter.
For example, this year marks Australia’s greatest‑ever expansion of financial crime rules. From March 2026, almost 100,000 businesses across Australia are newly subject to anti‑money laundering (AML), counter‑terrorist financing (CTF) and counter‑proliferation financing (CPF) obligations. Real estate agents, accountants and even legal practitioners will now have to monitor their customers and report suspicious activities to the government, extending obligations that banks and casinos have been subject to for many years. Despite its ongoing expansion, there is abiding uncertainty about the societal value of AML/CTF/CPF regulation. Do the benefits justify the ever‑ballooning costs, and what is this regulatory scheme meant to achieve in any event?
Parallel developments in the United Kingdom raise similar questions about the expanding scope and limits of corporate monitoring obligations. A number of recent developments have foregrounded and expanded the monitoring role of UK boards. The UK Corporate Governance Code stipulates that boards are responsible for establishing, maintaining and monitoring effective risk management and internal control frameworks, requires boards to carry out an annual review of the effectiveness of these controls, and from 2027 boards will be required to make a declaration of their effectiveness. Meanwhile, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 has introduced a wide‑ranging corporate failure to prevent fraud offence for large companies. Companies have a defence if they possess reasonable fraud‑prevention measures, which raises the risk of directors facing claims for breaching their duty of care to the company if they fail to take reasonable steps to ensure these systems are in place, and to monitor their effectiveness.
There are a number of challenges facing such actions, however, not least that the UK courts have recently indicated that the care required of directors under section 174 of the Companies Act 2006 is the same as that established by nineteenth‑century case law. That is, directors will only be liable if they act irrationally, or as “no reasonable director” would. This, at least, is the position in relation to challenges to directors’ decisions; the position in relation to monitoring obligations is less clear, and will be the focus of discussion.
Event Details
- Date:
- 28 May 2026 at 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
- Venue:
- Monash Conference Centre Level 7, 30 Collins Street, Melbourne
- Campus:
- Monash University City Campus
- Open to:
- all audiences
- Cost:
- free
Description
Australia and the United Kingdom are rapidly expanding regulatory regimes, placing new monitoring and compliance obligations on businesses and boards. This CLARS Law and Business Seminar brings these developments into conversation to examine what they mean in practice for accountability, governance and regulatory risk. Join us for a fascinating discussion of how far these obligations are reaching, and why they matter.
For example, this year marks Australia’s greatest‑ever expansion of financial crime rules. From March 2026, almost 100,000 businesses across Australia are newly subject to anti‑money laundering (AML), counter‑terrorist financing (CTF) and counter‑proliferation financing (CPF) obligations. Real estate agents, accountants and even legal practitioners will now have to monitor their customers and report suspicious activities to the government, extending obligations that banks and casinos have been subject to for many years. Despite its ongoing expansion, there is abiding uncertainty about the societal value of AML/CTF/CPF regulation. Do the benefits justify the ever‑ballooning costs, and what is this regulatory scheme meant to achieve in any event?
Parallel developments in the United Kingdom raise similar questions about the expanding scope and limits of corporate monitoring obligations. A number of recent developments have foregrounded and expanded the monitoring role of UK boards. The UK Corporate Governance Code stipulates that boards are responsible for establishing, maintaining and monitoring effective risk management and internal control frameworks, requires boards to carry out an annual review of the effectiveness of these controls, and from 2027 boards will be required to make a declaration of their effectiveness. Meanwhile, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 has introduced a wide‑ranging corporate failure to prevent fraud offence for large companies. Companies have a defence if they possess reasonable fraud‑prevention measures, which raises the risk of directors facing claims for breaching their duty of care to the company if they fail to take reasonable steps to ensure these systems are in place, and to monitor their effectiveness.
There are a number of challenges facing such actions, however, not least that the UK courts have recently indicated that the care required of directors under section 174 of the Companies Act 2006 is the same as that established by nineteenth‑century case law. That is, directors will only be liable if they act irrationally, or as “no reasonable director” would. This, at least, is the position in relation to challenges to directors’ decisions; the position in relation to monitoring obligations is less clear, and will be the focus of discussion.
Event Contact
- Name
- Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies
- clars@monash.edu
- Phone
- Organisation