Charles Williams, a significant figure in the creation of Australia’s national corporate regulation and in the ’80s big takeovers and market gyrations, died on March 6. He was 89.

Williams spent the bulk of his working life as a stockbroker, but in the last eight years of his career, he was at the centre of increasing federal regulation of the securities market, including the formation of the Australian Securities Commission (ASC), which later became ASIC.