Australian directors complain of need to use 'mountain of lawyers'

'There is enormous legalistic pressure,'John Colvin, chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors said in an interview reported in The Australian. 'You've got disclosure rules, then you've got class actions, you've got ASIC [the Australian Securities and Investments Commission], you've got such an array of people to attack directors under various pieces of legislation that it's really a difficult thing to do for directors to give what many of the investors want, which is greater disclosure of prospect.' He added that 'a mountain of lawyers' was needed to draft documents 'so that you wouldn't get into too much trouble.'