On 1 June 2026, Sarah Court will become the first woman to chair the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. She takes over from Joe Longo at a moment when the regulator has never been more active, more litigious, or more focused on the quality of corporate governance and disclosure across the ASX.
For boards, company secretaries, investor relations professionals, and corporate communications teams, this transition is worth taking seriously. Court is not a continuity appointment in the passive sense. She has been the architect of ASIC's enforcement renaissance, and her ascension to the Chair role signals that the direction of travel - more enforcement, harder questions, less tolerance for structural non-compliance - is not just continuing. It is accelerating.
Who Is Sarah Court and What Has She Built at ASIC?
Sarah Court joined ASIC as a Commissioner with a background in competition law enforcement at the ACCC. Over her tenure, she has been the operational driver behind some of ASIC's most significant enforcement outcomes, including actions against major financial institutions, fund managers, and directors across a range of misconduct categories.
Court's enforcement philosophy is disciplined and empirical. She has spoken publicly about the importance of ASIC being willing to litigate - not just threaten - and of using enforcement outcomes to set behavioural standards across the market. Under her leadership, ASIC has built two new enforcement teams specifically focused on director and company misconduct, including unpaid creditor obligations and governance failures.
The language Court uses in her public remarks is instructive. She consistently frames ASIC's work not in terms of regulatory burden, but in terms of the harm that poor governance and inadequate disclosure causes to ordinary Australian investors, superannuation members, and small businesses. This framing matters because it sets the threshold for what constitutes acceptable conduct.
What ASIC's 2026 Priorities Mean for Listed Companies
ASIC's formal enforcement priorities for 2026 - published under Court's oversight - identify several areas with direct relevance to ASX-listed companies and their governance and communications obligations.
Financial reporting integrity has been elevated to a named priority for the first time in several years. ASIC has signalled a renewed focus on the accuracy and completeness of financial statements, forward-looking disclosures, and auditor independence. For companies in sectors where accounting judgements are complex - healthcare, technology, resources - this signals closer scrutiny of how financial information is communicated to the market.
Governance and directors' duties failures remain an enduring enforcement priority, but with a notable statistical context: ASIC's February 2026 misconduct data showed corporate governance matters accounted for 5,217 reports - up from 3,819 in the prior period, representing a 37% increase. That spike is not random. It reflects an elevated expectation in the market that companies will operate transparently, and a greater willingness by shareholders, creditors, and market participants to escalate concerns.
Private credit has emerged as a new enforcement focus, relevant to any listed company - or advisory firm serving listed companies - operating in that space. The concern is opacity and investor harm, themes that connect directly to ASIC's broader disclosure agenda.
The Beneficial Ownership Reforms: The Biggest Structural Change in a Generation
Coinciding with the ASIC leadership transition is the imminent commencement of Australia's enhanced beneficial ownership disclosure regime, taking effect in December 2026. The reforms - which received Royal Assent in December 2025 - represent the most extensive changes to Australian disclosure law since the Corporations Act was introduced 25 years ago.
The reforms expand the substantial holding and tracing notice regime in several material ways. Foreign-incorporated entities listed on the ASX will now be required to comply with the same disclosure obligations as Australian-incorporated listed companies. A new concept of "deemed economic interest" captures equity derivatives that provide economic exposure without formal ownership, closing a loophole that has existed in the disclosure framework for decades.
For investor relations teams and company secretaries, the practical implication is significant. Your shareholder register may change — or appear to change — as institutional holders reassess their compliance obligations and adjust disclosed positions. Understanding the new regime, and communicating clearly about beneficial ownership disclosures to your existing investor base, is now part of the IR remit.
For investors in ASX-listed companies - particularly institutional funds with complex derivative positions - the December 2026 commencement date is not distant. Compliance reviews should already be underway.
How Algorithmic Trading Is Reshaping the Disclosure Challenge
The appointment of Sarah Court and the intensifying regulatory environment is unfolding against a technological backdrop that is fundamentally changing how ASX disclosures move markets.
Analysis published by Allens in April 2026 identified a structural tension at the heart of Australia's continuous disclosure regime: it was designed for a market where material price movements are driven by issuer-known information released in an orderly way. But algorithms now ingest ASX announcements in milliseconds, extract sentiment signals, infer meaning from tone and structure, and execute trades before any human investor has had time to read the document.
The practical consequence is that a poorly constructed ASX announcement - one that is factually accurate but tonally ambiguous, or technically compliant but strategically clumsy - can now generate adverse price movement simply because of how an algorithm reads it, not because of what it actually says.
This creates a new dimension to disclosure risk. Investor relations teams have traditionally focused on ensuring announcements are legally compliant and factually correct. The emerging discipline requires that announcements also be structured for machine readability - clear, direct, with key facts presented early and unambiguously.
ASIC has acknowledged this dimension. Its August 2025 market integrity review - which is ongoing - is examining whether the continuous disclosure framework needs to evolve to account for algorithmic trading dynamics. In the meantime, listed companies cannot wait for regulatory resolution. The market is already operating in this environment.
The Governance Simplification Paradox
Running alongside the tightening enforcement environment is a structural reform effort that appears to pull in the opposite direction. The ASX Corporate Governance Council's Advisory Group - chaired by former RBA Governor Philip Lowe - is working toward a simplified set of Corporate Governance Principles by end-2026, with public consultation on draft revisions expected in Q3.
The simplification agenda is genuine and welcome. The current 63-page rule book is disproportionately burdensome for the 82% of ASX-listed entities that have a market capitalisation below $500 million. Reducing compliance overhead for smaller companies has been a stated goal of the ASX itself, which has repeatedly identified governance complexity as a factor contributing to Australia's listings drought.
But boards and governance teams should not read simplification as a relaxation of standards. The Advisory Group has been explicit: the eight broad principles will be retained, as will the "if not, why not" framework that requires companies to explain departures from best practice recommendations. Simplification means clearer guidance and reduced administrative burden - it does not mean fewer accountability mechanisms.
In fact, simpler rules are arguably harder to hide behind. When governance principles are complex and multi-layered, companies can often demonstrate technical compliance while falling short of the spirit of the framework. Simpler, clearer principles make substantive governance failures more visible - which, in the context of Court's ASIC, means more actionable.
What Companies Should Do Now
The convergence of a new ASIC chair, elevated enforcement activity, an incoming beneficial ownership regime, and the algorithmic transformation of disclosure markets creates a clear set of priorities for governance and communications teams.
Governance audit: Now is the right time to review your disclosure policies, your continuous disclosure training, and your board-level governance documentation against the current framework. Gaps that were historically tolerated - imprecise disclosure timelines, inadequate trading halt practices, inconsistent market update protocols - carry more risk in the current enforcement environment.
Beneficial ownership preparation: Company secretaries should be mapping how the December 2026 reforms will affect their substantial holder register and updating investor communications templates to reflect the new regime.
Disclosure quality review: In light of algorithmic market dynamics, IR teams should be reviewing how ASX announcements are structured and whether key material information is surfaced clearly and early in each document.
Board-level communications: Directors need to understand that the governance and disclosure environment has materially shifted. This is a matter for board education, not just management reporting. Courts will look to board oversight - not just management conduct — when assessing accountability.
The Underlying Message from ASIC
What Sarah Court and her enforcement-forward ASIC are communicating to the market is not complex. It can be summarised simply: the standard of governance and disclosure we expect of listed companies is not negotiable, and our willingness to pursue those who fall short of it is not diminishing.
For companies that already maintain rigorous governance and investor communications standards, the new ASIC era presents no threat - and some opportunity. In a more actively enforced market, the quality of your governance becomes a differentiator in the eyes of institutional investors who are increasingly using governance signals as a proxy for management quality and long-term risk management.
For companies that have treated governance as a compliance exercise rather than a genuine discipline, the transition is a warning. The regulator has more capability, more willingness to litigate, and a new Chair whose record speaks for itself.
The question is not whether ASIC's expectations are reasonable. The question is whether your company's governance and disclosure practices can withstand the scrutiny of a regulator that is ready to test them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are ASIC's key enforcement priorities for 2026?
ASIC's 2026 enforcement priorities include governance and directors' duties failures, financial reporting integrity, auditor misconduct, misleading pricing practices, and private credit opacity. New enforcement teams have been established specifically to pursue director and company misconduct, including failures to pay small business creditors.
What does the new ASIC Chair Sarah Court mean for ASX-listed companies?
Sarah Court takes over as ASIC Chair on 1 June 2026 with a track record of building ASIC's enforcement capability and a mandate to maintain its enforcement-forward approach. Listed companies should expect continued focus on governance quality, disclosure accuracy, financial reporting integrity, and a willingness to litigate where standards are not met.
What are Australia's new beneficial ownership disclosure requirements for listed companies?
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Act 2025 introduces enhanced beneficial ownership disclosure for ASX-listed entities, commencing December 2026. Key changes include extending disclosure obligations to foreign-incorporated entities listed on the ASX, introducing a deemed economic interest concept for equity derivatives, and broadening the tracing notice regime.
How is algorithmic trading changing the disclosure obligations of ASX companies?
Algorithmic trading systems can now process ASX announcements and execute trades in milliseconds based on sentiment signals and structural interpretation - not just factual content. This creates disclosure risk beyond legal compliance: announcements that are technically accurate but structurally ambiguous can generate adverse price movements. ASIC is reviewing its market integrity rules, but IR teams should not wait for regulatory guidance before reviewing their announcement quality and structure.
How is the ASX Corporate Governance Principles simplification relevant to listed companies?
The ASX Corporate Governance Council is working toward a simplified governance framework by end-2026, led by former RBA Governor Philip Lowe. Draft revisions are expected in Q3 2026. The eight core principles and the "if not, why not" framework will be retained. Simplification is aimed at reducing compliance burden - not standards - with clearer principles potentially making governance shortfalls more visible, not less.
ARC is an Australian capital markets and investor engagement platform. We support ASX-listed companies in building the governance communications and investor engagement infrastructure to meet the standards the market requires.