What it does
The Corporations (New South Wales) Act 1990 is an application statute whose central function is to transplant defined parts of the Commonwealth Corporations Act 1989 and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 1989 into the statute book of New South Wales. Section 7 provides that the Corporations Law set out in s 82 of the Corporations Act (as in force immediately before its repeal) "applies as a law of New South Wales" and "may be referred to as the Corporations Law of New South Wales". Section 8 does the same for the regulations made under the Commonwealth Act. Parallel provisions appear in Part 11: s 58 applies the ASIC Act (excluding specified parts) as the ASIC Law of New South Wales, and s 59 applies the associated regulations.
The Act then builds an elaborate superstructure to ensure that these applied laws operate as though they formed a single national law. Part 3 (ss 11–13) supplies simplified citation rules and deems references to "the Corporations Law" to include both the NSW version and the versions of every other jurisdiction unless a contrary intention appears. Part 8 (ss 26–39) applies Commonwealth criminal and administrative laws to offences and administrative decisions arising under the applicable provisions, treating them as Commonwealth matters for investigation, prosecution, review, and appeal purposes. Commonwealth authorities and officers are given equivalent functions in NSW (ss 31, 37) but are constrained to act "as nearly as practicable" as they would in the Australian Capital Territory.
Part 9 is the jurisdictional heart of the statute. Division 1 vests civil jurisdiction in the Federal Court, State and Territory Supreme Courts, State Family Courts and lower courts (ss 42, 42A, 42B). It excludes the general cross-vesting statute (s 40(1)) and supplies detailed transfer rules (ss 44–44D) that require courts to have regard to the interests of justice, the location of the company's principal place of business, and the desirability of related proceedings being heard together (s 44B). Criminal jurisdiction is vested by Division 2 (ss 53–56), which equates offences against the Corporations Law of NSW with offences against Commonwealth law for the purposes of arrest, bail, trial, sentencing and appeals.