Reportable Situation
A circumstance that an AFSL holder must report to ASIC within 30 days of becoming aware, covering significant breaches and certain other defined events.
The Reportable Situations regime (formerly the Breach Reporting regime) was overhauled by the Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response) Act 2020 and took effect 1 October 2021. AFSL holders and credit licensees must report a “reportable situation” to ASIC within 30 calendar days of becoming aware.
Reportable situations include significant breaches (or likely significant breaches) of core obligations, gross negligence and serious fraud. An investigation into whether there is a significant breach becomes reportable in its own right once it runs past 60 days: the Act says 30, and ASIC relief has substituted 60 since June 2025. The 30-day clock starts when the licensee knows, or is reckless about whether, there are reasonable grounds to believe a reportable situation has arisen, not when the investigation confirms it, which is the operationally hardest aspect of the regime.
Late lodgement is itself a breach, and the awareness-clock makes lateness easy to incur. Most firms that get caught late didn’t mean to, they delayed because investigation wasn’t complete, but ASIC’s position is that the clock keeps ticking. The firms that lodge on time do so by drafting the lodgement in parallel with the investigation, not after.
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