ASIC's Biggest Year Yet Was Measured in More Than Penalties

Key Takeaways

• Record Enforcement Year: ASIC secured a record $579.5 million (AUD $830 million) in court-ordered civil penalties during the 2025–26 financial year, marking its strongest enforcement performance to date.
• Hundreds of Millions Returned: The regulator said $449.5 million (AUD $644 million) will be returned to consumers and investors through remediation, refunds and compensation programs linked to its enforcement work.
• Major Firms Sanctioned: Significant penalties were imposed on Union Standard International Group, HSBC Bank Australia, Macquarie Securities, Westpac, Walker Stores (Snaffle) and Mercer Super for misconduct spanning consumer protection, market integrity and governance failures.
• Criminal Enforcement Accelerates: ASIC recorded 25 criminal convictions during the financial year, including 21 custodial sentences and 11 individuals sentenced to imprisonment.

Deep Dive

The numbers arrive in clusters, almost daring the eye to become numb. $579.5 million (AUD $830 million) in court-ordered civil penalties, 449.5 million (AUD $644 million) to be returned to consumers and investors, more than 250 investigations, twenty-five criminal convictions etc. Read too quickly, they blur into the familiar arithmetic of regulation, another annual accounting of enforcement activity. Read more carefully, and something else emerges. This was not simply a year in which the Australian Securities and Investments Commission imposed larger penalties than before. It was a year in which nearly every lever available to a financial regulator (civil litigation, criminal prosecution, remediation, market intervention) was pulled with unusual force.

ASIC's figures cover the 2025–26 financial year and mark the strongest enforcement performance in the regulator's history. Between January and June alone, courts ordered $335.1 million (AUD $480 million) in civil penalties. Added to the $244.4 million (AUD $350 million) secured during the previous six months, the total reached $579.5 million (AUD $830 million), a record for the agency.

The list of defendants reads less like a single campaign than a cross-section of Australia's financial system. Union Standard International Group received the largest sanction, a record $209.5 million (AUD $300 million) penalty after ASIC's action over serious misconduct involving contracts for difference sold to retail investors. HSBC Bank Australia admitted failures in protecting customers from scams and was ordered to pay $24.4 million (AUD $35 million). Macquarie Securities received an identical penalty after systemic reporting failures produced millions of incorrectly reported short sales and distorted market data. Westpac was ordered to pay $18.2 million (A$26 million) for widespread failures in handling financial hardship requests. Walker Stores, trading as Snaffle, was ordered to pay $23.4 million (AUD $33.5 million) for unlawful credit practices that ASIC said caused consumers to pay nearly $14.0 million (AUD $20 million) in excess interest. Mercer Super was fined $7.2 million (AUD $10.3 million) for systemic reporting failures, including failing to notify ASIC of significant breaches.

What ties these cases together is not a single legal theory or industry sector. They concern scams, consumer lending, market integrity, governance, superannuation and disclosure. The common thread is institutional failure: systems that did not detect problems soon enough, controls that proved weaker than they appeared, governance arrangements that failed when they were expected to matter most.

Sarah Court, ASIC's chair, described the agency's enforcement work as deliberately focused on misconduct that produces tangible harm.

"Our enforcement work is focused on misconduct that causes real harm and we are delivering results, forcing change, strengthening accountability, and returning money to consumers and investors," she said.

That last point, the money finding its way back, is becoming as significant as the penalties themselves. ASIC said $449.2 million (AUD $643.5 million) has been earmarked for remediation, refunds and compensation connected with its work during the financial year, including more than $42.6 million (AUD $61 million) announced during the first half of 2026. Those figures do not represent court fines flowing into government coffers. They represent money returning, however imperfectly, to people who lost it.

Some of those programs continue to grow. ASIC said it secured nearly $27.9 million (AUD $40 million) in refunds for contracts-for-difference investors. Following the regulator's investigation, HSBC has already paid approximately $15.0 million (AUD $21.5 million) in compensation through a large-scale remediation program, with additional payments expected before the end of July, while separately recovering and returning $4.5 million (AUD $6.5 million) to affected customers.

Civil enforcement tells only part of the story. ASIC's criminal program also produced a series of high-profile outcomes during the year, reinforcing a trend toward more custodial sentences rather than financial sanctions alone.

In May, former Sydney fund manager Rodney Forrest was resentenced by the Full Federal Court to five years and three months' imprisonment for an insider trading scheme involving approximately $2.1 million (AUD $3 million) worth of Platinum Asset Management shares. Earlier in the year, former financial adviser Anthony Torre received a six-year prison sentence for fraud involving misappropriated superannuation funds. In March, Remedy Housing officials Brent Smith, Mahmoud Khodr and Fue Mano were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for dishonesty offenses.

By the close of the financial year, ASIC had recorded 25 criminal convictions. Twenty-one resulted in custodial sentences, with 11 individuals sentenced to imprisonment. During the same period, the regulator filed 32 new civil proceedings, commenced 18 criminal prosecutions, launched more than 250 investigations and secured $8.4 million (AUD $12 million) in infringement notices alongside $95,846 (AUD $137,315) in criminal fines.

Court argued that the significance of those figures lies beyond punishment itself.

"ASIC has delivered record penalties and strong criminal outcomes, but enforcement is not just about punishment. It is about detecting misconduct sooner, preventing harm where we can, and securing remediation for those affected," she said.

Regulators often speak about deterrence because it is difficult to measure anything else. The companies that comply because they watched another company fail leave no evidence behind. The executive who strengthens controls before misconduct occurs never appears in an enforcement release. Yet deterrence is the wager beneath every record penalty. ASIC's latest results suggest it is making that wager with more confidence than at any point in its recent history, which is not simply asking whether misconduct deserves punishment, but whether the prospect of punishment has become expensive enough that fewer firms are willing to test the answer.

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