Life Trading Pty Ltd, which presents itself as a technology-focused trading firm,has paid a penalty of $200,000, and entered into an enforceable undertaking with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), to comply with an infringement notice given by the Markets Disciplinary Panel (MDP).
The MDP had reasonable grounds to believe that Life Trading contravened Rule 2.2.8 of the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Futures Markets) 2017 which requires a market participant to have appropriate supervisory policies and procedures to ensure compliance by the participant and each person involved in its business with the market integrity rules and the Corporations Act.
The MDP found that Life Trading did not have appropriate supervisory policies and procedures from the time it became a market participant on 28 January 2019 until 4 June 2020, a period spanning 17 months.
Further, the MDP found that Life Trading’s framework for the supervision of traders was under-resourced, uncoordinated and undocumented for that period. Life Trading’s compliance culture throughout the relevant period was lax, with minimal commitment to ensuring an appropriate supervisory framework was implemented.
Also, there was a lack of pro-active engagement in relation to supervisory compliance, with the drivers of meaningful change being primarily attributable to responding to ASIC’s investigation.
The MDP notes that Life Trading has gradually made a number of improvements to its supervisory and compliance procedures. Despite those remedial steps, the MDP still remains concerned about the appropriateness of Life Trading’s supervisory framework and, for that reason, the MDP required Life Trading to enter into an undertaking for an independent expert to review and provide a report on Life Trading’s supervisory framework following the improvements made to that framework.
Life Trading Pty Ltd states on its website that it is a corporate Authorised Representative of Amplus Global Pty Ltd. Amplus Global manages a variety of investment portfolios for a diverse range of clients including institutional and high net worth investors.
