Section 602 — Corporations Act 2001: Purposes of Chapter

The purposes of this Chapter are to ensure that: (a) the acquisition of control over: (i) the voting shares in a listed company, or an unlisted company with more than 50 members; or (ii) the voting shares in a listed body (other than a notified foreign passport fund); or (iii) the voting interests in a listed registered scheme; takes place in an efficient, competitive and informed market; and (b) the holders of the shares or interests, and the directors of the company or body or the responsible entity for the scheme: (i) know the identity of any person who proposes to acquire a substantial interest in the company, body or scheme; and (ii) have a reasonable time to consider the proposal; and (iii) are given enough information to enable them to assess the merits of the proposal; and (c) as far as practicable, the holders of the relevant class of voting shares or interests all have a reasonable and equal opportunity to participate in any benefits accruing to the holders through any proposal under which a person would acquire a substantial interest in the company, body or scheme; and (d) an appropriate procedure is followed as a preliminary to compulsory acquisition of voting shares or interests or any other kind of securities under Part 6A.1. Note 1: To achieve the objectives referred to in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), the prohibition in section 606 and the exceptions to it refer to interests in “voting shares”. To achieve the objective in paragraph (d), the provisions that deal with the takeover procedure refer more broadly to interests in “securities”. Note 2: Subsection 92(3) defines securities for the purposes of this Chapter.