‘Tough but fair’: Corporate cop Joe Longo to step down as ASIC chair

Australia’s corporate watchdog Joe Longo will step down after a term in which the regulator has turned up the heat on the country’s superannuation giants over their treatment of customers, while also maintaining pressure on banks over consumer protection.

The chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), who turned 66 this week, said on Friday he would leave the watchdog when his current five-year term ended in May next year.

The government has started the search for Longo’s replacement. Deputy ASIC chair Sarah Court is highly regarded by the government and is seen as a potential contender for the job, though no decision has been made.

Longo will leave the watchdog after a period in which it has increased the number of new civil cases by a fifth, and taken on more investigations, while launching landmark cases against super fund giants including AustralianSuper and Cbus.

In those cases, ASIC took the super giants to court over their handling of death benefit claims. The action was part of a wider push for the superannuation sector to lift its game in its customer service.

Under Longo, ASIC has also kept the pressure on banking giants over their treatment of more vulnerable customers, including pushing banks to refund millions of dollars in fees to customers receiving government benefits, and taking action over failings in banks’ handling of customers in hardship.

ASIC has also been through a major restructure aimed at simplifying how it makes decisions on reports of misconduct in the financial sector.

“When I accepted the position, I was clear [that] ASIC needed to become a modern, confident and ambitious regulator,” Longo said in a statement on Friday.

“With the most significant organisational restructure in 15 years, new commissioners, a new CEO and refreshed senior executive team, I see that transformation is delivering dividends.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the search had started for ASIC’s next chair as he thanked Longo for overseeing the regulator during a period of “heightened economic, geopolitical and technological change”.

Chalmers also said on Friday that the deputy chair of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Margaret Cole, would leave the regulator in June next year. Cole has overseen major reforms of the superannuation sector since her appointment in 2021.

Before being appointed as ASIC chair by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Longo was general counsel for Deutsche Bank in London and Hong Kong. He had a stint as ASIC’s director of enforcement between 1996 and 2001.

Australian Banking Association chief executive Simon Birmingham said Longo had taken a consultative approach when dealing with banks, highlighting Longo’s mix of “commercial and regulatory experience”.

“Joe is a tough but fair regulator. He has led ASIC through an important time of change and challenge in our financial system,” said Birmingham, a former Coalition minister.

There has long been debate about the performance and scope of ASIC, and last year a Senate inquiry sharply criticised the regulator, saying the size and complexity of its remit had “outgrown its abilities”.

The inquiry, chaired by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, called for ASIC to be broken up, but the recommendation was not taken up by the government.

Legal experts were also surprised at ASIC’s decision in 2022 not to pursue legal action against former directors of Crown Resorts after the casino was embroiled in a money laundering compliance scandal.

ASIC had investigated the Crown directors for potential breaches of their duties but did not pursue them, though it did launch action against current and former directors of rival casino Star Entertainment later in 2022.

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