Activities
Activities of the Association
The principal activity of the Banking & Financial Services Law Association is to hold an annual conference. A conference has been held every year since 1984, frequently on the Gold Coast, but conferences have from time to time been held in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Queenstown and Auckland.
In 2010 the 27th annual conference is returning to New Zealand and beautiful Queenstown and we will once again be located at the Millennium and Copthorne Hotels. The Conference will be held on Sunday 15th and Monday 16th August for two full days. Please plan to arrive on Saturday for the Welcome Reception and as Monday is a full day, it is best to plan to fly out on Tuesday 17th August - unless of course you decide to try some skiing whilst in the area.
Locations are rotated for the conference with the 26th annual conference being held on the Gold Coast. Queenstown hosted the 25th annual conference and the 24th annual conference was held at the Hyatt Regency in Adelaide.
The conference is a prestigious one, with high quality speakers and experts in their respective fields addressing current issues of moment to the membership.
The Association publishes the papers presented at the annual conference in CD format. These represent a highly regarded and authoritative collection of writings on topical areas in banking and financial services law.
The Association also offers as an integral part of its activities the legal scholarship prize and the legal research prizes. Up to A$50,000 may be awarded to a successful applicant for the scholarship award, and a prize pool of up to A$15,000 is available to successful applicants for the legal research prizes.
The Association occasionally hosts seminars and workshops in various major cities in Australasia on key areas where there is felt to be a need for practitioners to meet with a view to addressing matters like new legislation and practices amongst the various law firms and their bank clients, and these are frequently well-regarded and attended.
The Inaugural 'Younger Members' Twilight Seminar has just been announced for Thursday 12th November featuring Ian Greer - Managing Director, Corporate and Government Ratings at Standards & Poor's, his topic being 'Demystifying Credit Ratings'. Please click here to download the booking form.
The Inaugural Twilight Seminar - open to all members, took place on the 9th March featuring Prof. Geoffrey P Miller, Stuyvesant Comfort Professor of Law, New York University Law School. His topic is “Policy Responses to the Crisis of 2008: Fighting the Last War or Rewriting the Playbook?” The evening was jointly sponsored by the BFLSA and Mallesons Stephen Jaques.
In Auckland in November 2001 and February 2002 workshops on the Personal Property Securities Act 1999, was attended by six of New Zealand's most prominent law firms with a view to seeking to discuss various matters affecting their and lenders' interests in view of the imminent introduction of the Personal Property Securities Act.
The Association has also contributed financially to the Australian law reform process with regard to the proposed adoption of a Personal Property Securities Act in Australia.
