In a statement issued at 6.30pm on December 23, the corporate regulator announced it had accepted an enforceable undertaking from the National Australia Bank following an investigation into the ASX 200 share price spike in October 2012.
According to the statement, the “EU relates specifically to NAB’s responsibility for potential market misconduct undertaken by the trading personnel of a contractor which led to the spike”, and involved a case of arbitrage trading on 18 October 2012.
Under the terms of the agreement, NAB has agreed to implement monitoring and control systems for its direct market access trading to be supervised by ASIC.
“It is imperative that entities have adequate monitoring and control systems in place to ensure this type of activity does not occur,” said ASIC commissioner Cathie Armour.
“The EU is a timely, effective way to ensure there is genuine change to monitoring and control systems. ASIC will closely monitor the implementation of these changes to ensure they meet our expectations.”
Meanwhile, ASIC has also accepted an EU from UBS involving potential misconduct related to the Australian Bank Bill Swap Rate.
In a separate statement, also issued on December 23, ASIC announced it had accepted an EU from UBS AG in relation to potential misconduct involving the Australian Bank Bill Swap Rate.
“In July 2012, UBS reported to ASIC that it had found evidence of conduct seeking to influence its BBSW submissions, based on how the submissions may benefit UBS’ derivatives positions. In February 2013, UBS withdrew from the BBSW submissions panel,” the statement said.
“The EU requires UBS to ensure its participation in relation to the setting of Australian interest rate benchmarks upholds the integrity and reliability of those benchmarks and are in accordance with its obligations under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Orders.”
The actions follow ASIC’s acceptance of an EU from the Commonwealth Bank’s retail broker CommSec last week.
