There are many legal controls on the initial public offering (IPO) process. Lawyers assist in the preparation of the IPO process and the shareholder class actions which can result if the process is not followed correctly or the company breaches its legal obligations to shareholders after the initial public offering has been made and the shares are trading actively on the ASX. This is naturally a very specialised area of the law and there are lawyers who devote their entire careers to ensuring that the legal aspects of an initial public offering are correctly put together so that there are not mistakes in the process and the company does not expose itself to excessive legal risk or liability as a result of engaging in the public offering process. Seek the help of a business lawyer for your legal business concerns.
The basic administrative system run by the Australian Securities and investments commission on the Initial Public Offering process is OfferList which is a public register of all of the current initial public offerings currently on the market and the accompanying essential documentation which is used to administer an initial public offering under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and associated regulations. Although the vast majority of IPOs relate to the issue of shares, there are also other financial instruments which are the subject of initial public offerings, these can include instruments such as debentures, credit or debit notes, options, stapled securities, units, warrants and managed investment products. All of these types of products have specific rules and obligations surrounding the operation of the rules and regulations which govern how these products are to be marketed to the public and what obligations this entails on the company or the issuer of the offering.
Increasingly in light of the global financial crisis, shareholder litigation is becoming more common as shareholders in private and public companies come to realise that they have been wronged by the board of a company or another group of shareholders and they institute legal proceedings based on the provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) which allow them to do this or on the basis of the common law which allows claims in relation to fraud on the minority and other types of shareholder litigation claims which can be made in situations where a class of shareholders has been disaffected by the decisions of the board made on behalf on a majority group of shareholders.
If you have an inquiry about the legal aspects of the initial public offering process or the company law relating to the offering of shares on the open market, we advise both companies and individual shareholders on the legal aspects of these types of transactions and associated litigation. Please do not hesitate to contact us using any of the methods of contact available on this site and we will endeavour to contact you as soon as we are able.
