The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has dropped its annual legal spend for the 2012 financial year.

The regulator, which has had a number of high profile cases come to conclusion in the past 12 months, dropped its legal and forensic costs to A$15.332 million, down from A$25.152 million the previous financial year.

ASIC launched 134 new litigation cases in the 12 months to June 30 and completed 179. Of those completed, it was successful in 92 percent of cases, up from 90 percent the year before.

Significant cases in the past 12 months included its successful High Court appeal in the James Hardie case, establishing breaches of duty by non-executive directors and company officers; penalties handed down to eight Centro directors and former executives who were found to have contravened the law and jail terms for Opes Prime and Sonray executives.

In total it accounted for 20 people being sentenced to jail time, 27 convictions, eight non-custodial sentences/fines, 84 directors disqualified or removed from managing companies and negotiated outcomes in 17 cases.