The Federal Court has ordered fines of $9 million for ANZ Bank and $6 million for Macquarie Group over "very serious" attempts by traders to rig a key benchmark rate in Malaysia's foreign exchange markets.
After the two banks last month admitted to attempted cartel conduct, Federal Court Justice Michael Wigney on Wednesday set penalties in line with those proposed by the competition regulator and the banks, which have co-operated with the investigation.
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Banks admit breaking cartel laws
ANZ Bank and Macquarie Group are facing multimillion-dollar fines over allegations of engaging in cartel conduct over trading in the Malaysian ringgit. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.
The fines are the result of an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission legal action against the two banks over private online chat room conversations between Singapore-based traders in 2011. The traders were trying to influence the daily fixing of a price for forward contracts of Malaysian ringgit. The banks last month agreed with the allegations and offered to pay fines of this size.
Justice Wigney underlined the severity of the misconduct, describing it as "very serious" and saying it had the "capacity to undermine the integrity and efficacy of the market in Malaysian ringgit forward contracts."
The two banks failed to properly monitor their Singapore offices to ensure they complied with the law, and penalties needed to be set to make sure they would not be seen by other banks as an "acceptable cost of doing business."
"The conduct of the traders employed by ANZ and Macquarie was deliberate, systematic and covert," Justice Wigney said in a summary of his decision.
"ANZ and Macquarie bore corporate responsibility for the conduct of their traders because they failed to establish satisfactory training, compliance and surveillance systems in their Singapore offices. They failed to foster environments conducive to compliance with the Competition and Consumer Act. Those corporate failings were significant and serious," he said.
Justice Wigney said the fines proposed by the ACCC and banks were "towards the very bottom of the permissible range of appropriate penalties." However, he agreed to the fines proposed partly because the banks had cooperated with the ACCC's investigation, had shown contrition, and could generally be considered "good corporate citizens."
![ANZ has been ordered to pay $9m for attempted cartel conduct.](/web/20161221205005im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/t/w/j/5/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtatiq.png/1481690621283.jpg)
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the penalties underlined the seriousness of the conduct.
"Two significant Australian banks have admitted that on several occasions their traders communicated with other banks in an attempt to influence the ABS MYR Fixing Rate," Mr Sims said.
"This conduct had the potential to undermine the integrity of foreign exchange markets and undermine healthy economic growth."
When news of the attempted rigging was first revealed last month, ANZ said it had beefed up its compliance in recent years, while Macquarie said it had not benefited in any way from the misconduct.