Macquarie notes $35m ASIC penalty for short-selling contraventions
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More news: Macquarie Group has stressed that it “seeks to uphold the highest standards” after corporate regulator ASIC announced Macquarie Securities has agreed to pay a $35 million civil penalty and admitted to several years of misreported short sales data.
The misreporting is partly due to multiple system-related failures that were undetected. ASIC launched the proceedings against Macquarie Securities on 14 May 2025, marking the corporate regulator’s first short-sale reporting case.
In a statement, the financial services giant said it “seeks to uphold the highest standards in meeting the expectations of markets and regulators and recognises the role of transaction reporting in market confidence”.
“If something goes wrong, Macquarie’s approach is to report the issue, engage constructively with regulators, fix the problem and apply learnings from any mistakes across the Group,” the statement reads.
Macquarie also said it continues to invest in improving its systems and controls.
Macquarie agrees to $35m penalty over short-sale breaches, admits misconduct
The news: Macquarie Securities and ASIC will jointly ask the NSW Supreme Court to impose a penalty of $35 million after Macquarie Group’s cash equities brokerage arm admitted to misreporting millions of short sales over several years.
The context: Macquarie Securities admitted to failing to correctly report at least 73 million short sales between 11 December 2009 and 14 February 2024.
Macquarie is estimated to have misreported between 298 million and 1.5 billion short sales due to multiple systems-related failures that were undetected for several years.
Macquarie also admitted it failed to have appropriate supervisory policies and procedures, maintain the necessary organisational and technical resources and have adequate risk management systems.
It has also admitted to incorrectly reporting regulatory data on more than 633,000 to the market operator between 16 November 2022 and 21 March 2023.
What they said: “Accurate and reliable data underpins confidence in our financial markets. ASIC and the market rely on short sale and regulatory reporting data - especially during periods of volatility - to understand market activity and make informed decisions,” ASIC chair Joe Longo said.
“Without accurate data, market transparency is undermined. Market participants must have the proper systems and processes in place to comply with their regulatory obligations.”
The sources: ASIC media release, Macquarie statement
