New Zealand: a new Securities Act - discussion document published

As part of its review of securities law, the Government has published a discussion document in which it proposes the introduction of a new Securities Act: see here (pdf). To quote from the document's executive summary:

The Ministry proposes that a new Act will replace the Securities Act 1978 and the Securities Markets Act 1988, and amend a range of other legislation. The new Act will set out what offers of financial products are to be regulated, how they will be regulated, and how this regulation will be enforced. While the Ministry proposes maintaining many of the existing principles in the current regime (e.g. that it remain based on mandatory standards of disclosure and governance), changes are proposed to increase the effectiveness of the regime.

The discussion paper picks up many of the recommendations of the Capital Market Development Taskforce (the Taskforce) and will support many of the other changes that have been made or are in the process of being implemented, such as the Financial Advisers Act 2008, the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act, the Securities Trustees and Statutory Supervisors Bill, and recent Government decisions to consolidate the market conduct regulators into a new Financial Markets Authority, and changes to improve the regulation of retail KiwiSaver schemes".