AFCA has amended its Rules to confirm its jurisdiction to receive complaints about the conduct of an authorised representative of an AFCA member, following a direction from ASIC in ASIC Corporations (AFCA Regulatory Requirement) Instrument 2021/0002.

At ASIC’s direction, the Rules now clearly reflect the same statutory liability for licensees regarding their authorised representatives as set out in the Corporations Act and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act regardless of whether the representative’s conduct is within or without authority.

The direction follows the judgment of the NSW Supreme Court in D H Flinders Pty Ltd v Australian Financial Complaints Authority Limited [2020] NSWSC 1690 which decided that AFCA only had the contractual authority to deal with complaints against AFS licensees regarding the conduct of an authorised representative if that representative was acting within the scope of their authority.

The updated AFCA Rules apply to complaints received by AFCA from 13 January 2021 onwards.

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