Just an excerpt of the full article, but boy looks like the ASX aren't exactly meeting best practice standards when it comes to market disclosure of the true status of the Chess upgrade. I don't think ASIC is watching though, too busy chasing the big fish such as ISX.Conflict hangs over ASX’s CHESS delay
Important governance issues are hanging over the project thanks to a strong past connection between a non-executive director and a senior executive.
There are many questions for the board of ASX to answer following the latest delays in its CHESS replacement project.
The first big question is this: why did the ASX board, led by Damian Roche, appoint an IT expert to the board who could be conflicted in his oversight of the key executive handling the CHESS replacement project?
ASX chairman Damian Roche needs to provide the market with greater clarity about the CHESS replacement project. David Rowe
This question stems from Roche’s appointment last week of Dave Curran, a former senior IT executive at Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, as a non-executive director of ASX.
Curran has been paid for more than a year by the ASX to help with the professional development of Tim Hogben, the group executive responsible for the CHESS project.
An ASX spokesman said the board was fully aware of the arrangement – in fact, the reference came from a board member.
“The services agreement ended with the knowledge of all parties upon Mr Curran’s appointment to the ASX board,” the spokesman said.
“Mr Curran is now in a position to apply his technical and project management expertise across the whole organisation, including to the CHESS replacement project,” he said.
But there is potential for the professional relationship between the two men to cause problems if Curran is forced to make hard decisions about Hogben’s performance should the CHESS project go off the rails.
Will Curran, who has had a vested interest in Hogben’s progress up the executive ranks at ASX, be able to look past his close past relationship and provide the board with fiercely independent advice?
Curran’s appointment no doubt got a strong tick of approval from ASX director Peter Marriott, who remains a director of Westpac and was on the bank’s board when Curran was its chief information officer from 2014 to 2018.
The ASX board has grappled with the management of conflict of interest for many years thanks to its equity interest in Digital Asset Holdings, a company that has won the lion’s share of the $250 million spent on the CHESS replacement project. ASX owns about 6 per cent of Digital Asset.
But the potential conflict arising from Curran and Hogben’s past relationship has the added complexity of the oversight of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Another burning question hanging over the CHESS project is this: why did ASX chairman Roche, departing ASX chief executive Dominic Stevens and Hogben make an urgent trip to New York last week?
