Macquarie Securities has paid a penalty of $110,000 to comply with an infringement notice given to it by ASIC's Markets Disciplinary Committee.
"The penalty was for Macquarie Securities failing to prevent a non-designated trading representative from submitting trading messages though the non-automated order processing component of its automated order processing system, into the ASX Trading Platform," said ASIC.
The breach of ASIC's Market Integrity Rules occurred "on or about" 19 or 20 December 2011, when manual trading system access was erroneously granted to a Macquarie Securities employee.
Between 27 January 2012 and 12 April 2012, the employee entered 446 'trading messages' into the ASX Trading Platform.
"Although the 446 trading messages did not have any actual improper impact on the market, the misconduct did nevertheless have the potential to interfere with the integrity of the market," said ASIC.
However, the misconduct was "careless", said the regulator.
"Permitting a non-DTR to have and use DTR-level access for any period of time is unacceptable. For that period of time to be approximately three months is particularly problematic given the increased potential to interfere with the integrity of the market," said ASIC.
