Overview

On 1 July 2004, the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (Audit Reform & Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004 (Cth) came into effect. This Act is now commonly referred to as the ‘CLERP 9 Act’, or simply ‘CLERP 9’, as many of the corporate law reforms implemented under this Act derived from proposals contained in a Federal Government Discussion Paper titled ‘Corporate Disclosure: Strengthening the Financial Reporting Framework’ released in September 2002 – the ninth policy proposal paper released as part of the Government's Corporate Law Economic Reform Program, or ‘CLERP’.

There is general consensus that CLERP 9 constitutes one of the most significant packages of corporate law reform, and by far the most significant effort at regulating the corporate governance practices of companies (along with the ASX Best Practice Recommendations), in Australian history. This is evident by the number of references to CLERP 9 made in this book, as well as by our decision to devote a whole chapter specifically to a discussion (albeit brief) of the history, and contents, of the CLERP 9 reforms.