Australia’s sleepy corporate regulator ASIC is doing little to stop thousands of retail shareholders being shafted in badly structured capital raisings compiled by global investment banks and complicit boards. Instead it is focusing on harassing and shutting “finfluencers” to shut them down.

The “finfluencer” situation is well explained in this Aussie Firebug farewell blogpost, but essentially it comes down to ASIC threatening to throw the book at bloggers who discuss financial products without having first secured an ASIC financial services licence, which can cost as much as $15,000 a year, including insurance.

At a time when financial advice is becoming increasingly expensive to procure, this over-the-top ASIC attack on free speech is reducing the information sources available to retail investors hoping to better understand the investment landscape.