Melbourne man charged with multiple counts of market manipulation (ASIC, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In July 2021 ASIC reported that Melbourne man Gabriel Govinda was charged with 23 counts of market manipulation and 19 of illegally disseminating information about it. ASIC's May 2023 release says he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment, released immediately on a recognisance, and fined A$42,840.

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$42.8k

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

ASIC announced the charges on July 2, 2021 as release 21-161MR. The charges were under Corporations Act sections 1041B and 1041D over trading in 20 securities between 2014 and 2015; the statutory maximums for each are ten years or a fine of A$765,000. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

Outcome: ASIC release 23-116MR, published on May 3, 2023, says Govinda pleaded guilty to 23 charges of manipulating ASX-listed shares and 19 charges of illegally disseminating information about the manipulation. ASIC says he used 13 trading accounts held in the names of friends and relatives between September 2014 and July 2015, trading between them and placing dummy bids, and then posted about it on the HotCopper forum. The court sentenced him to two and a half years' imprisonment, to be released immediately on a five-year recognisance of A$5,000, and fined him A$42,840. ASIC describes it as the first sentence under section 1041D.

The release is the only outcome source opened; it does not give the sentencing date, so May 3, 2023 is the release date, and it does not name the court.

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. 2021-07-02 ASIC media release
2. 2023-05-03 ASIC release 23-116MR: sentenced after guilty plea

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
• ASIC media release 23-116MR (sentence)

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

Same matter

The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.