Submission: Modernising Registry Fees

31/01/2022

Focusing on the search fees aspect of the consultation paper, ARITA has again submitted that insolvency practitioners should be provided with free and open access to company registry information to be able to use that data to investigate and report on failed companies to the corporate regulator. 

We stressed that it is unreasonable that liquidators should have to pay, often from their own pocket, to access information from a government department (new Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS)) to report that information to a different government department (ASIC). 

ARITA also submitted that open access, free of charge, to ABRS data will provide a number of benefits to the business community and the broader economy, namely:

• enhance the transparency and scrutiny of corporate conduct
• enhance and facilitate academic and empirical research into corporate conduct, which will inform and promote evidence-based policy and law-making, and
• remove the anomaly of insolvency practitioners paying to access data which is required to report to ASIC.

Read ARITA’s submission

Treasury Consultation: Modernising Registry Fees (December 2021)