BGC Partners (Australia) Pty Ltd has paid a penalty of $110,250 to comply with an infringement notice given by the Markets Disciplinary Panel.
The Markets Disciplinary Panel found that, on two occasions on 22 March 2019, BGC Partners transacted pre-negotiated business orders on the ASX 24 market without making the required enquiry through the trading platform’s message facility. The Markets Disciplinary Panel noted that there had been previous compliance failures of this type by BGC Partners.
The Markets Disciplinary Panel found that BGC Partners’ failure to make the required enquiry appeared to be the result of unintentional operator error and that it was likely this error could have been avoided if BGC Partners had updated its systems to incorporate enhanced technological safeguards. The Markets Disciplinary Panel considered that although enhanced technological safeguards may not be required where a compliance system is functioning properly, BGC Partners should have upgraded its compliance processes to include appropriate technological safeguards given its previous compliance failures.
As a result, the Markets Disciplinary Panel had reasonable grounds to believe that BGC Partners contravened subsection 798H(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 by failing to comply with Rule 3.3.1A(1) of the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Futures Markets) 2017.
Compliance with the infringement notice is not an admission of guilt or liability, and BGC Partners is not taken to have contravened subsection 798H(1) of the Corporations Act.
