The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will step-up its enforcement of design and distribution obligations after taking a “best-efforts” approach during a transition phase.

“We consider that industry is reaching a point where it has had sufficient time to bed down its implementation of the regime,” Chairman Joe Longo said last week.

“We will therefore be expecting compliance with the regime, and across this year we will pursue a targeted surveillance approach, and will be moving to enforce the obligations where necessary.”

Mr Longo told an Australian Institute of Company Directors summit that early reviews of target market determinations highlighted some disappointing approaches, but there had been “some positive improvements in response, including from the big end of town”.

ASIC said last year it would take account of compliance “best efforts” when enforcing a suite of reforms, including design and distribution obligations, given the difficult environment and the extent of changes taking place.

The DDO reforms took effect in October amid ongoing COVID-19 disruptions and as a raft of other new obligations were also introduced.

Mr Longo also told the summit ASIC focus areas in corporate governance include failures relating to non-financial risk, cyber governance and resilience and egregious governance failures or misconduct resulting in corporate collapse.

“As the year progresses, we factor in issues and developments in the market and adjust our activity accordingly to ensure our actions and priorities are aligned,” he said.

“At the moment we are looking closely at the impact of factors such as the uncertainty in global markets, record low interest rates, and the rapidity of digital transformation.”