Guide
You’ve received a compliance notice. Here’s what it means.
A compliance notice is an instruction from the Registrar to fix something. It tells you why the corporation is receiving it, what has to be done, and — importantly — the timeframe for doing it. There is no standard deadline: yours is written on your notice.
What a compliance notice is
What the Act says
“A compliance notice is an instruction to a corporation to fix something.”
The notice sets out “a description of why the corporation is getting a notice”, “instructions on how to meet the requirements of the notice”, and “a timeframe for meeting the requirements”.
What that means
Three things follow, and the third is the one people miss:
- It is an instruction, not a penalty.
- It tells you what to do — you are not expected to guess.
- Its deadline is its own. Do not look for a standard period; read the date on your notice.
Checked against ORIC — Addressing compliance notices, .
Read the date first
Before anything else, find the timeframe in the notice and put it somewhere the whole board can see it. Everything on this page is less important than that date.
If the date is close and the corporation cannot realistically meet it, that is worth raising with ORIC rather than letting it pass silently. The Registrar’s stated preference is that corporations are given the opportunity to resolve lower-risk matters themselves — a corporation engaging with a notice is in a different position from one that ignores it.
What a notice can be about
A notice can address the corporation not complying with the CATSI Act or with its own rule book, an irregularity in the corporation’s affairs, or circumstances that exist or could develop that might lead to special administration.
That last category is worth reading carefully rather than anxiously. It means the Registrar can act on a problem before it becomes serious — a notice on those grounds is closer to an early warning than a final step.
Why it matters that you act on it
Failing to comply with a compliance notice is one of the grounds on which a special administrator can be appointed to a corporation. The consequences follow from not acting, not from receiving the notice.
To be completed — CONTENT-CHECKLIST §5
The full escalation path — what the Registrar does if a notice is not complied with, in what order and over what timeframe — goes here once it has been confirmed against ORIC's regulatory compliance framework and Policy Statement PS-26. We are not going to describe a regulator's enforcement process from inference on a page read by people who are worried about exactly that.
What to gather
Whatever the notice is about, these are usually what you need in front of you:
- The notice itself, in full, including anything attached to it.
- Your corporation’s rule book — a surprising number of notices concern the corporation’s own rules rather than the Act.
- The relevant records — accounts, minutes, membership register, whichever the notice concerns.
- Any earlier correspondence from ORIC. A notice rarely arrives without something before it.
When to get help
Some notices are straightforward and a board can deal with them directly. Get help early if the notice concerns the corporation’s accounts or reporting, if it refers to circumstances that could lead to special administration, if the board does not have the information it needs to answer, or if the timeframe is not achievable.
Early is the operative word. A corporation that asks for help a week before the date has fewer options than one that asks the week the notice arrives.
If your notice relates to reports that have not been lodged, start at overdue ORIC reports — that is the underlying problem, and fixing it is usually what the notice is asking for.
Frequently asked questions
How long do we have to respond to a compliance notice?
There is no single answer — the notice itself sets the timeframe for meeting its requirements. That is why the date on your notice matters more than anything you will read on a website. Find it first.
What is a compliance notice, in plain words?
An instruction from the Registrar to the corporation to fix something. It sets out why the corporation is receiving it and what has to be done to meet its requirements.
Does a compliance notice mean we are being punished?
No. It is an instruction to put something right, not a penalty. The serious consequences follow from not acting on it rather than from receiving it.
What happens if we do not comply with it?
Failing to comply with a compliance notice is one of the grounds on which a special administrator can be appointed to a corporation. That is precisely why the timeframe in the notice matters.
Should we reply ourselves or get help?
It depends entirely on what the notice asks for. Some are straightforward and a board can deal with them directly. Where the notice concerns the corporation’s accounts, reporting, or something the board does not have the information to answer, get help early rather than after the date has passed.