ASIC

Wealth management firm Ord Minnett has paid an $888,000 penalty for twice breaching market integrity rules in executing a share buy-back with “pre-arranged” trades.

A shareholder class action against software company Nuix will go ahead as planned, after a stay application threatened to put the proceeding on ice pending the outcome of a separate case brought by ASIC.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has gone after a superannuation fund over a Facebook post that allegedly overstated the fund’s positive environmental impact.

MLC has agreed to cop a $10 million penalty for admitted breaches of the Corporations Act in an ASIC case that alleged the insurer failed to promptly update medical terms in policies and withheld payment of a life insurance benefit.

The parents of Sydney fraudster Melissa Caddick will seek an inquiry into whether receivers of her property have acted faithfully in managing the assets.

Two executives involved in ANZ’s $2.5 billion equity capital raising have stood by arguments that the book was covered when the bank’s underwriters took up $750 million of the shares, despite ASIC’s allegations of “receding demand” on the day of the placement.

ANZ has told a court it had no obligation to disclose a $750M bailout by the underwriters of a $2.5B equity capital raising in 2015, in ASIC’s case alleging the bank breached its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to alert the market to the bailout.

A senior ANZ executive was “deeply concerned” by the size of the shortfall in its $2.5 billion 2015 equity capital raising, the court heard on the first day of trial in ASIC’s civil penalty case against the bank over alleged disclosure breaches.

A court has wound up Ascent Investment and Coaching, after ASIC filed proceedings against the company and director Michael Dunjey over concerns that investor funds may have been improperly dealt with.

The High Court has rejected investment group Mayfair 101’s bid to challenge a $30 million penalty following a judge’s finding that it misled investors about the risk profile of its financial products.