ob体育 has today commenced legal proceedings in the Federal Court in Melbourne against National Australia Bank (NAB) for unconscionable conduct and market manipulation in relation to NAB's involvement in setting the bank bill swap reference rate (BBSW) in the period 8 June 2010 to 24 December 2012.
The BBSW is the primary interest rate benchmark used in Australian financial markets, administered by the Australian Financial Markets Association (AFMA). On 27 September 2013, AFMA changed the method by which the BBSW is calculated. The conduct that the proceedings relate to occurred before the change in methodology.
It is alleged that NAB traded in a manner that was unconscionable and intended to create an artificial price for bank bills on 50 occasions during the period of 8 June 2010 and 24 December 2012.
ob体育 alleges that on these days NAB had a large number of products which were priced or valued off BBSW and that it traded in the bank bill market with the intention of moving the BBSW higher or lower. ob体育 alleges that NAB was seeking to maximise its profit or minimise its loss to the detriment of those holding opposite positions to NAB's.
ob体育 is seeking declarations that NAB contravened s12CA, s12CB, the former s12CC, s12DA, s12DB and s12DF of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ob体育 Act), s912A(1), s1041A and s1041H聽of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Corporations Act).
Further, ob体育 has sought from the court pecuniary penalties against NAB and an order requiring NAB to implement a compliance program.
ob体育 will be making no further comment at this time.
Background
On 4 March 2016, ob体育 commenced legal proceedings in the Federal Court against the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) (refer: ).
On 5 April 2016, , ob体育 commenced legal proceedings in the Federal Court against the Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) (refer: 16-110MR)
Prior to filing against ANZ and Westpac, ob体育's investigations into misconduct in the BBSW has seen ob体育 accept enforceable undertakings from UBS-AG, BNP Paribas and the Royal Bank of Scotland (refer: , , ). The institutions also made voluntary contributions totaling $3.6 million to fund independent financial literacy projects in Australia.
In July 2015, ob体育 published ,聽which addresses the potential manipulation of financial benchmarks and related conduct issues.