todays action, page-12

These events go back a bit now but you have to wonder whether these piddly fines are an effective deterrent to this kind of thing when tens of millions are at stake. Worth a read for anyone interested in Galaxy as State One are intimately involved here.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,25547867-36418,00.html

Perth stockbroker collects record fines for phantom bidding
Andrew Main, Business editor | May 28, 2009


A SMALL Perth stockbroker has the painful distinction of collecting the most fines ever levied by the Australian Securities Exchange -- $235,000 plus GST -- after a successful appeal by the ASX against a ruling by its own Disciplinary Tribunal.

The ASX said State One Stockbroking's (SOSL) fines had been lifted by $60,000 from $175,000 after ASX's appeal to a higher Appeal Tribunal.

SOSL is run by former Eyres Reed senior analyst Alan Hill, who previously worked for a broking house in South Africa.

SOSL's main offence was manipulative trading, for which it was fined $100,000 on four specific charges relating to events in November 2006.

The Australian understands that SOSL was actually a seller in certain small stocks, mainly WA mining shares, and pushed their share price up by making brief "phantom bids" for the stock on the automated trading system, such that other bidders then offered higher prices.

As soon as the higher prices were extracted, SOSL pulled its bid off and "hit the bid" with as many shares as it could sell at that price. "SOSL denied this contravention but the Disciplinary Tribunal found the contravention proved," ASX reported.

Mr Hill, the SOSL executive chairman who ASX said was not personally involved in the transactions, could not be contacted for comment last night.

The Appeal Tribunal judgment noted that, in this case, there was no justification in a submission that the offender should get a smaller penalty because of potential hardship.

"The fact that a penalty may result in financial hardship to a (market) participant is one of the very objects which an appropriate penalty is designed to achieve," it said.

SOSL was further fined $100,000 plus GST for unprofessional conduct. The offence which incurred the increased fine was for market "churning", whereby SOSL reported some 3303 transactions between October 2, 2006 and March 15, 2007 in which there was no actual change of beneficial ownership.

"The transactions were carried out by employees of SOSL acting as day traders trading as Principal on SOSL accounts which they individually managed," said the judgment, adding that profits on the transactions were split between the company and the traders.

A broker's desire to push through NCBO (no change in beneficial ownership) transactions would come from the desire to make shares look more liquid than they actually are, convincing possible buyers that the stocks were easy to sell.