The rule in one paragraph
Section 1043A of the Corporations Act stops a person who holds inside information, and who knows or ought reasonably to know that it is inside information, from trading in the financial products it concerns or getting someone else to trade in them. A second limb stops that person passing the information to anyone they know, or ought reasonably to know, would be likely to trade on it or get someone else to.
“… the insider must not (whether as principal or agent): (c) apply for, acquire, or dispose of, relevant Division 3 financial products, or enter into an agreement to apply for, acquire, or dispose of, relevant Division 3 financial products …”
Corporations Act 2001, section 1043A(1), quoted from the Federal Register of LegislationFour points from the Act
- It is not only directors. The section is written about “a person”, called “the insider” once they hold the information. Nothing in it limits the rule to people who work for the company.
- Rumour and plans can count. For the insider trading rules, “information” includes matters of supposition, matters not yet definite enough to announce, and a person’s intentions or likely intentions.
- A company knows what its officers know. A body corporate is taken to possess information an officer gained in the course of their duties as an officer.
- The border is not a shelter. The rules reach conduct outside Australia in products issued by someone who carries on business here, or by a body corporate formed here.
The window, pane by pane
Six guides, each taking one part of the law. Read them in any order; the upper sash covers the prohibition itself, the lower sash what surrounds it.
Each guide lists its sources at the foot of its page.
Why the window closes
An entity in the ASX Listing category has to keep a trading policy and give it to the ASX market announcements office so the market can read it. At a minimum the policy names its “closed periods”, the fixed stretches of the year when the entity’s key management personnel generally may not trade in its securities. The strip below shows one invented policy, drawn the way this guide draws every policy: open windows in green, closed time hatched.
- Window open (example)
- Closed period (example)
An open window is not permission to trade on inside information. The ASX’s guidance on trading policies says a trade made inside a permitted window, or outside a blackout period, can still breach the insider trading laws if the person has inside information at the time. The full picture is in the guide to trading windows and blackout periods.
Where these pages come from
- The Corporations Act 2001, read on the Federal Register of Legislation in compilation 149, which took effect on 19 September 2026. The Act’s own text is quoted where it is marked as a quotation.
- ASIC, which administers the Act: its information sheets, media releases and guidance pages, summarised in our own words.
- The ASX Listing Rules and the ASX’s guidance note on trading policies, described in our own words with the ASX’s pages linked.
None of it is advice about a particular trade. ASIC administers these laws, and a lawyer can say how they apply to a particular person.