GRC Report Staff

ASIC's Form 581 and accompanying guide set out how directors, secretaries, members, or third parties may apply for administrative reinstatement of a deregistered company under section 601AH of the Corporations Act 2001. The form is dated 22 March 2018 even though the item is listed under a 2026-09-16 date, so it appears to be a republished or re-surfaced existing form rather than a new rule. Compliance teams should treat it as a procedural reference for entity lifecycle management, counterparty due diligence, and legacy-entity remediation.

On September 16, 2026, ESA staff published 14 operational instructions that clarify how major ICT-related incident data should be completed in DORA reporting templates. The instructions are not legal interpretations, but they show what supervisors expect for data quality. Compliance teams should align incident reporting procedures now to avoid rejected, inconsistent, or duplicated reports.

EIOPA's September 16, 2026 article (published via Eurofi) argues that aging demographics and uneven retirement confidence require national reforms with EU coordination, along with stronger EU-level supplementary products such as the PEPP or a "EuroPension" model. It is a policy position rather than binding regulation, but it signals the direction of supervisory expectations on DC design, defaults, transparency, and costs. Compliance teams at pension, asset management, and insurance firms should use it to anticipate product and disclosure changes.

ASIC's Form 208 requires companies to notify the regulator of shares issued for non-cash consideration, such as property, services, dividend capitalization, or reserve capitalization, when the issue is not covered by a lodged written contract. It must be lodged with a Form 484 within 28 days. Compliance teams should confirm that corporate secretarial processes capture these issues and meet the deadline to avoid late lodgment fees.

The SEC has proposed rescinding Rule 14a-8, the federal shareholder proposal rule, which would leave shareholder proposals to state law and company governing documents. It also proposed amending Rule 14a-4(c) on discretionary proxy voting authority and streamlining proxy solicitation procedures. Compliance, legal, and corporate secretary teams should assess the effect on shareholder engagement, proxy processes, and governance documents, and consider submitting comments.

ASIC has published Form 396, which proprietary companies must lodge when they intend to stop, or have stopped, relying on the audit relief in ASIC Corporations (Audit Relief) Instrument 2016/784 or Class Order [CO 98/1417]. Missing the lodgement window permanently bars a company from re-applying the relief in future financial years, so compliance teams need to track the deadline closely. The form carries no lodgement fee, but the consequences of late lodgement are significant.

ASIC's Form 403 (dated 17 January 2011, though listed here under a 2026 date) requires a foreign company to verify a true copy of the document authorizing someone to execute a memorandum of appointment or power of attorney for a local agent under section 601CG(2) of the Corporations Act 2001. It is a procedural form with no lodgement fee, not a new rule. Compliance teams supporting foreign entities registered in Australia should confirm that their filings and annexures meet its formal requirements.