Australian Securities and Investments Commission Class Order [Co 00/1116] (Cth)

Australian Securities and Investments Commission
Corporations Law — Subsection 741(1) — Variation

Pursuant to paragraph 741(1)(a) of the Corporations Law, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission hereby varies ASIC Class Order [CO 00/44] by:

1.           replacing the sentence appearing under the heading "Persons Exempted" with the following:

"This exemption applies to a person who issues, or is involved in the issue of, an electronic disclosure document or an electronic application form if a purpose of the issue is to make an offer of securities."

2.           replacing condition 5 with the following:

"An electronic copy of a document must be a substantially faithful copy of the relevant paper original, but may differ from the original:

(a)in content, if the differences are trivial (for instance, typographical and spelling mistakes, and corrections of those mistakes, if they do not affect the sense); or

(b)in presentation (for instance, its general layout and formatting), if the differences do not result in a person breaching section 728,

and in each case if those differences are not likely to:

(c)cause a reasonable person to confuse part or all of another document with the electronic copy; or

(d)reduce the likelihood of a reasonable person reading any part of the electronic copy.

Subject to paragraphs 5(c) and (d), further examples of permissible differences in presentation under paragraph 5(b) include any or all of the following:

(e)       immaterial differences in the arrangement of material;

(f)        prompts to assist a person to read the electronic copy;

(g)       hypertext links:

(i)         within the electronic copy;

(ii)from the electronic copy to another document under Part 6D.2 (for instance, an electronic supplementary document or a document incorporated by reference under section 712);

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(iii)        to assist a person to apply for, or pay for, securities;     

(h)the absence from (or simplification in) the electronic copy of graphics of a promotional or decorative nature (as opposed to those presenting substantive information, including headings, graphs and tables); and

(i)the use in the electronic copy of codes to control the display of the document, which are not themselves intended to be displayed."; and

3.         inserting as Note 1 the following, and renumbering Notes 1 and 2 as Notes 2 and 3:

"Application of Class Order to electronic disclosure documents made generally available during the exposure period under subsection 727(3)

Note 1:   This Class Order only applies to a person who issues, or is involved in the issue of, an electronic disclosure document or an electronic application form, where a purpose of the issue is to make an offer of securities. A person does not make an offer of securities by only making an electronic disclosure document generally available during the exposure period contemplated by subsection 727(3) if they:

(a)           do not make an electronic application form available with the electronic disclosure document during the exposure period; and

(b)           display a prominent statement that will be seen no later than the electronic disclosure document to the effect that securities are not being offered on the basis of the electronic disclosure document displayed and securities will only be issued or transferred on the basis of an application form to be issued together with the disclosure document.".

Dated the 7th day of June 2000

Signed by Brendan Byrne

as a delegate of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission

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