After announcing his retirement from the public sector months ago, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Chairman David Knott has finally spoken out about his sudden decision to quit and his plans for the future.

Speaking to the ABC’s Inside Business program only days after the Australian Financial Review published an apology for publishing highly critical comments, he said he has “needed to have fairly broad shoulders” to deal with criticism over his retirement. Although he has found the past couple of months unpleasant, it hasn’t affected any decisions he had to make.

“When I came into the job I thought it would be for a minimum of three years [and] a maximum of five. I was keen that the appointment should, on the face of it, be for five, so that people got used to the idea I was here.

“But I finished 10 years in the public sector this year. I’m turning 55. I’m looking at the next stage, the final stage of my career, and I’m looking forward to returning to the commercial sector.”

Now he’s looking for a future that has “a diversity of interest”, but he’s not contemplating anything for real until he’s left ASIC at the end of the year.

In the meantime, he says business opposition to ASIC’s new regulatory abilities – including on-the-spot fines for market disclosure failures – is “overblown and almost hysterical”.

He said he’s disappointed by industry criticism, but can understand why some non-compliant businesses may not like the regulator. “We have a very important market disclosure regime. It requires companies to get information into the market in a proper, timely and full sense and many times this is not happening.

Now, if our only remedy is to take them through a court process that could last 12 months or more, involve hundreds of thousands of dollars, how often are we going to enforce that law?”