NCSC restructures to cope

Press, 16 August 1989, Page 43

NCSC restructures to cope

NZPA-AAP Sydney The National Companies and Securities Commission will step up its surveillance and enforcement operations through a major restructuring in a bid to tackle a. sharp increase in cases. The executive director, Mr Ray Schoer, said the commission had been snowed under with a spate of investigations stemming mainly from the stock market crash in 1987.

He said a possible delay of up to 12 months with extra staffing approved by the Ministerial Council had forced the NCSC to take immediate action to cope with the rush of work. “We wanted to free up our resources to get through as much work as we can and concentrate efforts on the major issues of surveillance and enforcement programmes,” Mr Schoer said.

“The commission has been criticised for the amount of work it delegates. The retructure is our way of dealing with the substantial increase in the volume of cases under investigation.” The NCSC will eventually be replaced as corporate watchdog by the Australian Securities Commission. The ASC’s launch date hinges on the outcome of a High Court challenge against its powers by the states.