COVID-19: important changes to continuous disclosure
provisions
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread market
volatility and uncertainty, making life very difficult for many
boards trying to comply with Australia's continuous disclosure
and misleading and deceptive conduct laws. As we have previously
discussed, for many listed entities it is near impossible to
accurately predict the financial impact of the constantly changing
business environment. Consequently, the economic fallout from
COVID-19 has materially heightened the risk of securities class
actions based on alleged inadequate disclosure.
The Federal Government is clearly conscious of the risk posed by
unmeritorious class actions and, in addition to a
range of other measures, on 25 May 2020 made temporary
modifications to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
(Corporations Act), raising the threshold for breach of civil
penalty disclosure provisions to circumstances where information
was withheld with
