A large bank has been fined 4.995 million Australian dollars by ASIC, the Australian National Competent Authority, for a for failing to prevent suspicious orders being placed on the electricity futures market. This is the largest fine ever placed by ASIC’s Market Disciplinary Panel (MDP). The press release can be found here and notice here.

MDP found that on 50 occasions from January to September 2022, the bank failed to prevent orders from being placed by three clients that had the possibility of an attempt to “marking the close”. The orders were placed within a minute of the close and a movement in the settlement price that would result from the orders would favour the client’s position.

Earlier this week a fine in Spain was announced under REMIT for marking the close (see here).

Subscribers to ETR’s Regulatory Support Service(see here) will receive a fuller analysis following the Energy Trading Week conference.