EVENT: Lessons from the Banking Royal Commission for the COVID-19 world

In the age of COVID-19, the Banking Royal Commission seems a lifetime ago. But fresh scandals ranging from the Ruby Princess debacle to regulation of dodgy hand ‘sanitisers’ demonstrate the Commission’s lessons for broader, effective corporate regulation remain critically important. Within the financial sector itself, regulators have been active, pursuing headline cases such as the Westpac money laundering fiasco, CBA’s defective ‘AgriAdvantage Plus’ packages and NAB’s now notorious ‘Introducer Program’. Much work clearly remains to be done. This panel event seeks to identify and explore the ongoing challenges from legal, business and regulatory perspectives. What are the best ways to ensure delinquent corporate citizens are held to account? How should Australia go about the task of overhauling and reforming existing complicated and inefficient systems of legal regulation of powerful corporates? Beyond reforming regulation, what are the ways in which corporations themselves are better able to lead the case for cultural change in their own workforces and boards?