ASIC v. Openmarkets Australia Limited (market integrity rules, 2023)

Settled

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In 2023, ASIC announced that Openmarkets Australia Limited had paid a record A$4.5 million infringement notice penalty and entered an enforceable undertaking over weaknesses in its surveillance of suspicious client trading, and that a former acting head of trading was banned for three years.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

A$4.5m

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in AUD. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced this matter on July 5, 2023 as release 23-184MR. The respondents named are Openmarkets Australia Limited and Virginia Owczarek (1 individual, 1 entity).

The Markets Disciplinary Panel's notice concerns Openmarkets' compliance framework, not a manipulation by the firm: it had too few skilled surveillance staff, did not turn on its anti-wash-trade filter on a second occasion after a 2017 notice, and did not adequately act on suspicious client trading. The release also mentions a back-office error that left trust accounts short by up to about A$20 million for 35 business days. Openmarkets is not alleged to have wash traded.

This library applies no technique tag to the matter. The conduct is a market-integrity compliance failure, which has no technique page in this library.

Openmarkets paid A$4.5 million and entered an enforceable undertaking. ASIC separately banned the former acting head of trading, Virginia Owczarek, from providing financial services for three years.

The firm paid the penalty and did not contest the alleged contraventions; under an infringement notice it is not taken to have contravened the law.

Timeline

1. 2023-07-05 ASIC media release

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.