ASIC says Commonwealth Securities Limited (“CommSec”) has paid a penalty of $200,000 to comply with an infringement notice given to it by the Markets Disciplinary Panel (“MDP”).
The MDP had reasonable grounds to believe that CommSec contravened subsection 798H(1) of the Corporations Act by reason of contravening rules 2.1.3 and 3.3.1 of the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (ASX Market) 2010.
Rule 2.1.3 generally requires a market participant to have appropriate supervisory policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the market integrity rules.
Rule 3.3.1 generally prohibits a market participant from entering into a market transaction for a client, and from allocating a market transaction to a client’s account, except in accordance with the instructions of the client or of a person authorised by the client.
No instructions from client
On 25 March 2014, CommSec received formal notification of the death of one of its clients, who held two accounts with CommSec — an equities account and a margin loan account. At that time, CommSec failed to apply a holder record lock to either of the accounts.
Between 25 March 2014 and 14 October 2014, CommSec entered into 59 market transactions on behalf of the deceased client on the instructions of a family member of the deceased client through CommSec’s online trading portal. Although the family member was authorised in relation to trading on the margin loan account in the event of a margin call, the family member was not authorised to provide instructions to enter into any of the market transactions. CommSec allocated the market transactions to the deceased client’s accounts.
The MDP was satisfied that CommSec entered into the market transactions for the deceased client, and allocated them to the deceased client’s accounts, without the instructions of the deceased client or of a person authorised by the deceased client.
Inadequate supervisory policies and procedures
During the relevant period, CommSec’s deceased estate area were in the process of undergoing an internal restructure. In October 2014, CommSec became aware that the restructure had resulted in a backlog of deceased estate work involving failures to apply holder record locks to a number of accounts of deceased clients, including the deceased client.
The MDP was satisfied that, although CommSec had written deceased estate policies and procedures designed to prevent unauthorised trading on deceased client accounts, they were not properly implemented and integrated into the business or appropriately monitored.
The compliance with the infringement notice is not an admission of guilt or liability, and CommSec is not taken to have contravened subsection 798H(1) of the Corporations Act.
