HI5015 Legal Aspects Of International Business And Enterprise

Answer:

Introduction

HSBC is one of the world’s largest financial and banking services organization, the company has over 3800 offices all over the world with the target areas where there is an established market and emerging market. The company has several goals which are the connection of their customers to opportunities, helping the people to realize their ambition, enable businesses to grow and also establish a thriving economy within the countries they have developed. The company has significantly globalized over the past years and this has enabled it to build up a client base of over 38 million customers all over the world. This has been possible is the company’s global four businesses. These includes, global banking and marketing, global private banking, commercial banking and retail banking and wealth management. The company has managed to cover over 66 countries all over the world and different territories in the world. These includes Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America and North America. The company has also been listed in the stock exchange of London, Hong Kong, Paris, Bermuda and New York with at least 200 000 shareholders in more than 125 countries and territories. The company has employed 229,000 people all over the world and in Australia the company has 36 branches and offices and provided employment for over 20,000 people in the country although the figure has not yet been confirmed.

Legislative Regulatory Framework/S Affecting HSBC: Financial Services Company

There are different legislative regulatory frameworks affecting HSBC in Australia. The country has different business and environmental laws that significantly affect businesses both local ones and the international companies in the country as well as those entering the country’s market. It is important to address some of these legislatives. Some of these legislatives include the competition laws. The country has a national statutory framework which ensures that trading in the country is carried out fairly between businesses and the customers as well. This covers mostly how the businesses in the country competes with the other companies in the country (Black, J., 2017). This affects even the MNC which have their branches in the country. This policy in the country is enforced by the Australian Competition and consumer Commission. For HSBC the competition law governs how the company professional services such as commercial banking, global banking and marketing, global private banking and retail banking and wealth management services are offered. This is inclusive of a fairly competitive professional level of service offering. This has made it impossible for the company to have a standard rate for the service in the country as compared to some other countries it has its branches located (Sornarajah, M., 2017). This has significantly affected the company rates since the country has already set the policy in place so as to ensure a fair competition among the companies in each business industry within the country. Hence for the financial industry, the company has to set all the rates in accordance with the countries pre-set policies. In terms of competition HSBC has to perform in accordance with the other companies in the same industry due to this legislation.

Consumer Laws are other set of legislative regulations that are significantly impacting the growth and development of multinational companies in Australia. The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) provides regulatory on areas inclusive of; unfair contract terms, product safety laws, unsolicited consumer agreements, consumer rights guarantee, lay by agreements and penalties and other areas in the country (Black, J., 2017). HSBC serving multiple customers across the country its significantly affected by the legislation. This legislation covers multiple contacts standard forms laws that are respected by every business operating in the county. This legislative affects MNC legal system in relation to the contract terms since the consumer laws protect the country’s consumers. The ser contract laws need to abide with the pre-set legislations by ACL.  

The other legislative regulation in the country that affects HSBC in Australia is the Product liability regulation this is a regulatory policy in the country that is responsible for ensuring that the country’s market does not receive any harmful products which may be marketed to the consumers. The regulation applies also for both international and local companies. The policy request that every company must verify the safety of the product or the services it offers the consumers (Black, J., 2017). For the international companies, this means that the products developed should pass the verification process and meet the standards that deem them a health product for consumption by the users. Within the country these are mostly referred to as the product safety rules. They are enforced by the states and territory government fair trading offices where their main role is to assist the consumers receive safe products. The policy mostly affects companies in the field of providing products to the consumers but also affects other companies that are in the service industry which may provide services that indirectly affect its customers indirectly or after a set duration of time without the notion of the consumers.

Environmental Legislation are another legislative regulatory framework that has an impact on the multinational companies in the country. The policies cover two distinct areas in relation to business operations in the country. These include the cultural concerns of the country and the national environmental concerns in the country. Environmental concerns include the impacts a company or a business has on the environment. on the other arm the cultural concerns include how the company culturally integrates with the Australian cultures. For HSBC the cultural concerns affect different operations within the company. These policies monitor the different business operations and approve of them within its borders. Incase these are not met then the company’s operations are not executed within the Australian borders. The nature of these regulations makes the ma point of concern for any multinational company with the intentions of venturing in to the Australian industry (Black, J., 2017). For our case HSBC is more affected by the cultural concerns. Being a multinational company, it is its responsibility to put the cultural concerns of other countries it launches its branches. For its operations in Australia the company had to put into consideration the cultural concerns of the country. The mode of carrying out their operations for instance had to be tailor made for the company, the more of employment, employment terms as well as treatments were to abide to these operations. Since the company caries out small businesses that significantly affect the environment, the environmental regulations have not significantly affected the company’s growth in the country. These regulations also have governed how the company has managed to interact with the different people within the country since in relation to cultural difference, the company has had to customize its customer approach within the country and ensure it does not affect the cultural concerns covered in the environmental legislations.

The most important regulatory framework in the country and MNC in the financial sector is the privacy laws in the country. The privacy laws in the country are covered by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). This is the body responsible for how the information of people within the country is protected. For the financial sector, personal information is one of the most essential and critical information that requires attention. For the case of HSBC, the OAIC has significantly impacted the information privacy laws of the company since the company needs to meet all the policies and at the same time provide security of its customers information. The regulatory framework stipulates how businesses can collect, access and store the people’s information within the country. This is applicable to not only international businesses but also other local businesses especially in the financial sector. It provides specific requirement on the management f sensitive information especially in the banking sector (Sornarajah, M., 2017).  Within the financial sector, personal information has been termed as one of the most sensitive tools in the industry. HSBC deals mostly with the customer persona information and for this to be accomplished, the company has to deal with the integration of the country’s requirements so as to meet the customer demands in the country. A slight violation of this may significantly cost the company’s permit to operate in the company (Brummer, C., 2015). The privacy laws within the country are under the privacy act 1988 within the Australian Law.

The Australian Accounting Standards are set by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) which is an independent Australian Government agency, these are legislative requirements for the cooperation which are applied to all general-purpose financial reports of public and private sector reporting entities (Brummer, C., 2015). This affects all the financial bodies in the country and as categorized before HSBC falls under the category. Another key sensitive regulatory framework in the country is the business activity statement. The businesses operating in Australia are expected to lodge a Business Activity Statement (BAS) in to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) so as to make payment and report their tax obligations. HSBC operating in the country soil, it means that these regulations needs to be met and any deviations from the legislations leads to legal charges affecting the running of HSBC operations in the country. The BAS has been personalized particularly for every business and can be done both electronically, or via mail or person (Brummer, C., 2015).

Different treaties, conventions or agreements in the country over the past few years have had an impact on the products and services offered by HSBC. It is important to identify some of these changes and effects they have had. Changes within Australia corporate and consumer regulator on insurances has greatly affected the financial industry in the country. The inquires in the sector has significantly affected the laws within the sector and in return affecting the companies within the industry (Liu, T., Wang, Y. and Wilkinson, S., 2016). These companies are inclusive of both local and international countries. For the international companies, these changes have seen the company’s incomes drop due to the ongoing investigation by the ASIC.

The other legislative change within the country that has significantly affected HSBC among other MNC in Australia is the National minimum wage increase. For the residents in the country, this is of advantage to them since this means an increase to there daily income, but for the employers it means a slight decrease to their daily profits (Liu, T., Wang, Y. and Wilkinson, S., 2016). With this in mind, the change has significantly affected the company since a salary increase to its employees is expected. This means the monthly income of the company in the country has been affected by the changes. From 1 July 2018, the national minimum wage within the country increased by 3.5% this brings us to the new national minimum wage of $719.20 per week, for a 38-hour Week, or on a daily calculation, $18.93 per hour.

The other changes that have affected the HSBC is the changes with the tax legislative body in the country. The government has introduced the Single Touch Payroll which has already taken effect. ATO requires any company operating in the borders of Australia that has 20 employees more than that to report to it each time the company pays their employees (Picciotto, S., 2017). HSBC having employed more hat this number is expected to oblige to these new changes within the legislative body. The information that it is supposed to send it’s the employees’ salary as well as their wages, deductions, allowances and other forms of payments offered by the company, pay as you Go (PAYG) and superannuation. There have been other changes in information security, this is touching on personal information security. The updates re on the National Privacy act – data breach changes under the Privacy Act 1988. This affects those businesses with an annual turnover of more than $3 million. The changes have seen to have significant impact on the financial bodies within the country and such breaches may affect the individual’s personal life. the notifications of such breaches are to be reported to the Office of Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) (Liu, T., Wang, Y. and Wilkinson, S., 2016). The privacy amendment Act 2017 applies to all organizations and agencies that have personal information which leaves HSBC one of the entities affected.

From the carried-out study, it is evident that Australia has multiple legislative requirements MNC are required to meet before carrying out their operations in the country. HSBC has met the requirement satisfactory to enable them conduct their operations on an international level.   

References

Black, J., (2017). Critical reflections on regulation. In Crime and Regulation (pp. 15-49). Routledge.

Brummer, C., (2015). Soft law and the global financial system: rule making in the 21st century. Cambridge University Press.

Liu, T., Wang, Y. and Wilkinson, S., (2016). Identifying critical factors affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of tendering processes in Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs): A comparative analysis of Australia and China. International Journal of Project Management, 34(4), pp.701-716.

Picciotto, S., (2017). Rights, responsibilities and regulation of international business. In Globalization and International Investment (pp. 177-198). Routledge.

Sornarajah, M., (2017). The international law on foreign investment. Cambridge University Press.