The efficacy of civil penalty sanctions under the Australian corporations law

Although civil penalties for the enforcement of directors' duties have been available to Australia securities regulators since 1993, they are rarely used. The authors identify four reasons for these developments, including resource constraints, relations with other regulatory agencies, availability of alternative sanctions, and concerns about the utility of civil penalties.

This paper is taken from the report of research undertaken with the assistance of a grant from the Criminology Research Council.