ASIC has permanently banned former Deutsche Bank FX options and futures trader, Andrew Donaldson, of Sydney, from providing financial services.
The banning follows an ASIC investigation into Mr Donaldson’s conduct in 2013 and 2014 in entering a significant number of false entries into Deutsche Bank’s records. By making these false entries, Mr Donaldson temporarily offset trading losses he had suffered and artificially increased his reported trading profits.
The entries related to trades purported to have been carried out by Mr Donaldson on behalf of Deutsche Bank and resulted in a temporary overstatement of Deutsche Bank’s internal Australian Management Accounting revenue result of approximately 28 million Euros. As the entries related to trades that were never executed in the market, no external parties were affected.
An ASIC delegate found that Mr Donaldson contravened a financial services law (by engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to a financial product), that his conduct was extremely serious and that ASIC had reason to believe that Mr Donaldson was not of good fame and character.
Mr Donaldson’s conduct was detected by Deutsche Bank and reported to ASIC. Deutsche Bank conducted an investigation into its relevant processes and controls to identify weaknesses and has notified ASIC of the measures it believes will better monitor and detect such conduct in the future.
ASIC Commissioner Cathie Armour said:
The integrity of our financial markets is vitally important and ASIC will take action to remove anyone in the financial services industry who engages in conduct that undermines this integrity.
This action is also a reminder to financial institutions to ensure that they have the right systems, people and processes in place to monitor trading conduct and detect and address trading discrepancies in a timely manner.”
Mr Donaldson has a right to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for review of ASIC’s banning order.