ASIC has updated its Regulatory Guide RG 49 (Employee incentive schemes) and issued 2 new class orders to facilitate the range of financial products that can be offered under employee incentive schemes (previously referred to as employee share schemes). To this end, ASIC has replaced Class Order [CO 03/184] with 2 separate class orders – [CO 14/1000] (for listed bodies) and [CO 14/1001] (for unlisted bodies).
ASIC Commissioner John Price said that ASIC has been able to provide more disclosure relief for unlisted companies than has been given in the past. However, given that there are fewer regulatory reporting and compliance obligations applying to unlisted bodies, and no readily available market price for their financial products, the class order relief for unlisted entities is somewhat more restricted than that for listed entities. For example, an offer in relation to an unlisted entity cannot be valued at more than $5,000 per annum per eligible participant.
While broadening the scope of ASIC’s disclosure relief, Mr Price said that ASIC has not changed its fundamental policy settings for employee incentive scheme.
In addition, ASIC noted the Government’s proposed tax changes for employee share schemes and the foreshadowed work by the Tax Office to develop standardised documentation for establishing and maintaining an employee incentive scheme.
Source: ASIC media release 14-287MR, 31 October 2014
[LTN 212, 3/11/14]