Watchdogs need to prove they have bite

Adam Feeley. Photo / Dean Purcell

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley has work to do to rebuild the SFO's reputation in the business community. The fraud-buster was reprimanded for celebrating the laying of charges against Rod Petricevic with a bottle of Bridgecorp champagne.

The upshot is that CEOs rated the SFO's performance as average on a 1-5 scale where one equals poor performance and five an excellent performance.

The SFO let themselves down with the Bridgecorp champagne debacle," says Porter Novelli managing director Jane Sweeney. "It was not a good look for an enforcement agency." Others noted that "perception" was key.

Like the SFO, the new Financial Markets Authority also has work to do to cement its position as the leading enforcement agency for New Zealand's securities and capital markets.

Commerce Minister Simon Power, who is retiring at the November 26 election prior to joining Westpac as a senior executive in January, set up the authority to rebuild investor confidence after the finance company sector collapsed.

The FMA - headed up by Sean Hughes - opened in April.

CEOs said both agencies appeared "under-resourced" and "needed more budget." Though it was too early to form a judgment on the FMA, they nevertheless rated the authority's performance marginally head of the SFO.

It is clear from chief executives comments that there are bugbears in the FMA's relationship with companies.

Among them:

* "The FMA is virtually invisible for mum and dad investors and has done nothing to address the fundamental issue of how to create confidence and appetite for investment in the capital markets - they do not understand who their customers really are!"

* "I would like them to spend more time on clarifying the very grey rules rather than bashing companies in the courts, particularly in the area of continuous disclosure which is ripe for what constitutes good practice."

* "The FMA is wasting time and money with weak investigations that have no merit to send an unwarranted message. Complete waste of time at the moment. Minutes of research recently would have saved hours of work and money on an investigation."

It's early days yet for the enforcement agencies - but clearly they have work to do before they gain the full confidence of company chiefs and market participants.