According to an announcement in Australia’s 2022-23 federal budget document, fees for checking company information on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) website will be abolished following the launch of the new “Australian Company Registration” online platform in September 2023.
The Australian government will forgo $65 million in revenue related to annual company registrations, including the company information search fee mentioned above. This also enables Australia to be in line with countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, which have long exempted company information inquiry fees.
Searching for a company document on ASIC’s website starts at about $40. The fee has long been criticized by transparency advocates for creating barriers to due diligence on companies, especially private companies that are not listed on the public stock market but have long been subject to disclosure obligations.
It is understood that “retail enquiries” (referring to enquiries made by individual citizens or businesses such as the media, potential corporate partners or buyers) will be free when the new “Australian Company Registration” online platform goes live. But the Australian government has yet to announce whether “institutional enquiries” by companies such as credit bureaus and data providers that provide company information as their core services will continue to be charged. The Treasury Department has received a $300,000 spending request to redesign the agency’s business enquiry process.
Budget documents also show that companies will no longer be required to pay annual overdue review fees and that businesses will pay less for “provisional submissions”.
