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The commission charged six more individuals but laid 11 less criminal charges compared to the first six months of 2021.
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ASIC reveals $115m rise in civil penalties
29 July 2022
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ASIC has released its summary of enforcement outcomes for the January to June period revealing an increase of more than $115 million in civil penalties imposed from the same period of the previous year.
The substantially larger amount of civil penalties came from fewer cases, with only 47 civil penalty cases occurring this year but 48 in 2021.
While civil penalties had risen, prosecutions had reduced with only 132 criminal charges laid with two people imprisoned compared to 143 criminal charges and five people imprisoned in 2021.
ASIC also had fewer defendants prosecuted for strict liability offences with only 252 however in 2021 there were 387 cases for strict liability offences.
In the first half of the year the number of individuals that ASIC disqualified or removed from directing companies increased from 19 in 2021 to 26.
However, the number of individuals or companies removed or restricted from providing financial services or credit was substantially lower at 31 compared to 70 in the previous year.
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So far this year ASIC had issued only two infringement notices and only $26,640 in infringement penalties, a large decrease from 2021 where they issued $392,000 in infringement penalties and three notices.
The enforcement summary showed that credit misconduct was the most prevalent type of wrongdoing when it came to financial services with 20 instances, while administrative remedies were the most popular solution.
This differs from the previous year where credit misconduct was only the second highest at 14 behind other financial services misconduct with 19.
The summary provided by ASIC revealed that this year the commission had engaged in far fewer market-related enforcement matters with only six of which two were insider trading, two were market manipulation and one was continuous disclosure.
In the first half of 2021 ASIC concluded 17 market-related enforcement matters with no insider trading matters recorded however there were two continuous disclosure incidents and two market manipulation occurrences as well.
Corporate governance enforced outcomes are one of the few outcomes that have increased this year when compared to last.
This year ASIC has already had outcomes of 36 corporate government issues with auditor misconduct being the most frequent with 32 instances.
This is a steep jump from the previous year that only had a total of 20, of which 19 were also auditor misconduct.
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