Court orders penalties and other relief against Westpac for BBSW conduct (ASIC, 2018)

Judgment entered

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In November 2018 the Federal Court ordered Westpac Banking Corporation to pay a pecuniary penalty of A$3.3 million, the maximum available, for unconscionable conduct in setting the BBSW benchmark in 2010, and to commission an independent review of its systems. The court had found in May 2018 that on four dates Westpac traded with a dominant purpose of influencing the yields of bank bills and where BBSW set.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

A$3.3m

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in AUD. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

the Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced this matter on November 9, 2018 as release 18-341MR. The respondent named is Westpac Banking Corporation (0 individuals, 1 entity).

ASIC's 2016 case alleged trading that created an artificial price and false appearance in products priced off BBSW; the court found unconscionable conduct on four dates in 2010 and inadequate procedures. The release also recounts earlier ANZ, NAB and CBA outcomes, which are not this record's figures. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

The relief recorded in our data is a pecuniary penalty of A$3.3 million, recorded in its native currency. Penalty and disgorgement are distinct: disgorgement returns the gain, while the penalty is punitive. We store them separately so that aggregate figures across the library are not double-counted.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2018-11-09 ASIC media release

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.