The stockbroking arm of Macquarie, Macquarie Securities, has paid a penalty of $120,000 to comply with an infringement notice given to it by ASIC’s Markets Disciplinary Panel (MDP).
According to the infringement notice, the MDP had “reasonable grounds” to believe Macquarie Securities’ automated order-processing system had interfered with the “efficiency and integrity of the Chi-X Market”.
Furthermore, the infringement notice found Macquarie Securities had artificially inflated the prices of two illiquid securities on both the Chi-X and ASX markets.
Specifically, a failure with Macquarie Securities’ automated order processing on 1 September 2014 led to transactions that caused price increases of 567 per cent in the shares both of Quantum Resources Limited (QUR) and Navaho Gold Limited (NVG).
The MDP issued fines of $30,000 for each share class affected.
In a separate occurrence, on 5 September 2014 and 20 October 2015, Macquarie Securities received orders to sell 200 shares in Telstra Corporation Limited (TLS) and buy 200 shares in Santos Limited (STO), respectively.
The two transactions resulted in prices in the shares that were “substantially away from their prevailing market prices”, leading to an additional $60,000 penalty.
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