ASIC v. CBA (price manipulation, 2018)

Judgment entered

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In July 2018 ASIC accepted a court enforceable undertaking from Commonwealth Bank of Australia over its participation in setting the BBSW benchmark. The bank pays A$15 million to community benefit and A$5 million to ASIC's costs, and had been ordered by the Federal Court in June 2018 to pay pecuniary penalties of A$5 million for attempting to engage in unconscionable conduct by seeking to affect where BBSW set on five occasions in 2012.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

A$5m

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 July 10, 2018 as release 18-210MR. The respondent named is Commonwealth Bank of Australia (0 individuals, 1 entity).

The release records CBA's admission that it attempted to affect the BBSW set on five occasions between January and June 2012, and an independent expert review of its bank bill trading controls. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

The relief recorded in our data is a pecuniary penalty of A$5 million, recorded in its native currency, plus undertaking payments of A$15 million to community benefit and A$5 million to costs. 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. 2018-07-10 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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 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.