Openmarkets Australia Ltd, one of the country’s largest stock brokers, has been slapped with a record fine of A$4.5 million ($2.99 million) after a panel declared the retail broker guilty of multiple market integrity rule violations, as announced by Australia’s corporate regulator on Thursday.
Routine surveillance by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) flagged repeated instances of suspicious trading by a client of Openmarkets.
The client had executed simultaneous bid-and-ask orders for the same security at an identical price on 2,011 separate occasions. Astonishing really. ASIC noted that Openmarkets should have reasonably suspected these orders could create an artificially inflated trading price or give a deceptive impression of active trading.
The regulator highlighted that Openmarkets did not have suitable supervisory procedures in place to guarantee compliance with regulations. It also pointed out that the retail broker suffered from a lack of adequately skilled staff to conduct effective trade surveillance.
In response to an infringement notice issued by the Markets Disciplinary Panel (MDP), which adjudicates on alleged market integrity rule breaches, Openmarkets has now agreed to an enforceable undertaking. This compels them to engage an independent expert to evaluate, report on, and suggest necessary remedial actions for their trade surveillance.
ASIC stressed that this decision sends a strong signal to all market players: violations of market integrity rules will lead to hefty penalties, which should not be viewed merely as a business expense. Following this, Openmarkets’ ex-Acting Head of Trading, Virginia Owczarek, was prohibited from offering any financial services for a three-year period.
In a separate announcement, Openmarkets acknowledged that, since these issues were uncovered, it has revamped its operations, commissioned an independent review of its trade surveillance systems, and installed a new leadership team to execute this strategy.
Australia has recently suffered multiple financial industry scandals with a major bank in the country recently fined a record $3.5 million for sending SPAM emails. Other reports include people unable to make cash withdrawals because branches no longer have cash.
In other local news, Australia’s AMP Ltd (AMP.AX) drops shared sharply after the country’s federal court ruled against the wealth manager in class action proceedings that challenged the validity of some of the changes to its ‘buyer of last resort’ policy.
Author Profile
- Lucy Walker covers finance, health and beauty since 2014. She has been writing for various online publications.
Latest entries
- April 9, 2025Global EconomicsTariff Tensions Drive Market Volatility
- March 18, 2025Global EconomicsRed in Name Only: Labour’s War on the UK Working Class
- March 7, 2025SatoshiCraig Wright Banned from UK Courts with Civil Restraint Order
- February 19, 2025BitcoinThe Rise of State-Level Strategic Bitcoin Reserves