ASIC’s legal agenda runs down public purse

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

1 June 2026

The outgoing chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Joe Longo, in one breath last Friday boasted how often the regulator is pursuing litigation and, in the next breath, lamented it is running out of money to do so.

Longo, appearing before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, bemoaned the fact that ASIC’s Enforcement Special Account (ESA) is running short of money noting that, by 30 June this year, it will “fall to the minimum level needed to manage the risk of adverse court orders”.

Longo, a barrister, told the Parliamentary committee that “capability must be matched by capacity”.

“Frankly, we cannot expect ASIC to run more, and more timely, criminal cases if the Director of Public Prosecution’s (DPP) resource envelope to assess and determine ASIC’s referrals of briefs of evidence remains static. This is particularly so, as the demands on the DPP grow from other law enforcement agencies around the Commonwealth,” he said.

Members of the Parliamentary Committee had earlier been told by Longo that ASIC is “ambitious, because we are willing to raise the bar – for ourselves, and for the financial system that Australians rely on – by testing the law and driving systemic change through every available channel”.

While outlining the legal actions ASIC had pursued, Longo said; “Ambition is why ASIC is in court nearly every day of the week – from the Magistrates’ Courts all the way to the High Court.

“During the past five years, we’ve more than doubled the number of formal investigations each year and we’ve quadrupled the value of penalties obtained,” Longo said.