As part of its commitment to improving consumer clarity, the Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPReg) introduced new transparency rules in July 2023.
These require regulated firms and sole traders to provide transparent information on fees, financial benefits, and referral arrangements to clients.
To understand how the new rules are working in practice, IPReg commissioned Frontier to carry out a thematic review. We looked at compliance levels, the nature of information provided by firms, and any broader impacts on the legal services market.
Here’s what we found:
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High awareness, strong compliance: Over 90% of respondents to our survey said they understood and were complying with the new rules. Most firms viewed the requirements positively and felt they were in line with best practice across the market.
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Some room for improvement: A small number of providers did not appear to be fully meeting the requirements, especially with respect to information on foreign exchange markups. While these gaps are not currently a material risk to consumers, they suggest that additional guidance from IPReg may provide benefits to consumers and address some of these limited instances of potential non-compliance.
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Positive impact, minimal disruption: Firms and sole traders reported little to no negative impact on their operations, aside from minor administrative work. Many recognised the commercial benefits of being more transparent with clients.
Based on our analysis, we’ve made six key recommendations to IPReg to help reinforce good practice and reduce uncertainty for regulated entities:
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Provide guidance on the commercial benefits of transparency.
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Explore whether examples of best practice or different methods of compliance can be provided to regulated entities.
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Experiment with different methods of communicating transparency guidance to test if compliance improves.
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Explore follow-on research on the range of foreign exchange uplifts and fees, to further improve transparency.
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Carry out a review of a random sample of sole traders and firms to further assess compliance with the foreign exchange transparency rules.
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Analyse any changes in the number or types of complaints over time.
Author
Associate Director
Manager
Consultant
08 April 2025
