The CDPP’s decision to drop all criminal cartel charges against two banks and four individuals in a “test case” over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement shows the ACCC “lacks expertise and objectivity” on the financial markets and should leave them to ASIC to regulate, according to one of the former accused.
In a stunning reversal, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution has dropped all criminal cartel charges against two investment banks and four individuals in relation to a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, four years after the charges were brought following an allegedly questionable investigation by the ACCC.
A senior ACCC officer has been grilled on whether staff training on criminal cartel investigations was “inadequate” while the competition regulator ran a cartel probe into ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement in 2016.
The ACCC has been accused of running a “experimental test case” that tries to fit the shares market within the scope of the Competition and Consumer Act with its criminal cartel case against Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and several prominent banking executives over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement.
JPMorgan Australia chairman Rob Priestley told Citigroup and Deutsche Bank executives not to “panic” about picking up a shortfall in the sale of ANZ shares, a court has heard in the ACCC’s criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement.
A senior ACCC officer tried to dissuade ASIC from investigating alleged insider trading by JPMorgan because of fears it would “upset” the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, a court has heard.
A senior ACCC officer was probed Tuesday on whether the competition regulator updated its guidelines for taking witness statements in July in response to criticism of investigators’ methods in the cartel probe over ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement.
A former JPMorgan managing director has said the three investment banks at the centre of an alleged cartel made individual decisions to trade “gently” in ANZ shares but were conscious of their fellow underwriters’ risks following a botched share placement in 2015.
JPMorgan bigwigs who are key witnesses for the prosecution in its cartel case over ANZ’s botched share placement in 2015 will be questioned by Citibank and Deutsche ahead of trial.
The ACCC’s practice of successively refining witness statements without saving draft versions was “quite unfair”, says a judge overseeing the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a botched ANZ share placement.