The whale behind Openmarkets’ epic ASIC fine
Openmarkets will pay the biggest penalty the corporate regulator’s market disciplinary panel has imposed, $4.5 million, after being pinged for suspicious trading and compliance failures on multiple occasions.
The fine comes with a banning order for the broker’s former head of trading, Virginia Owczarek, from providing financial services for three years, after she accepted a $2000 payment to give stock tips to a client. The Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk column reported the client was former Pomi PTY trader and Cannon Capital director Philip Tauberman.
Openmarkets has been hit with the largest ever fine imposed by ASIC’s market discipline panel. Wayne Taylor
Ms Owczarek was also found to have had “inappropriate” talks with an unnamed client who tripped several compliance alerts.
The penalties largely relate to the activities of the 41-year-old Mr Tauberman, who sources said accounted for as much as a third of Openmarkets’ trading volumes at one point. Mr Tauberman was also behind a 2017 infringement notice dished out to Openmarkets over $10 million of trades in BHP and Blackmores.
The little-known Latvian-born day trader regularly accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the daily trading volume in certain top 50 or large cap stocks during some sessions, putting him on the radar of regulators.
Those familiar with his trading strategy said he relied on high volume, high turnover trades to make small margins in ultra-short time periods similar to algorithmic trading.
The regulatory probe is said to be concluded and Mr Tauberman is no longer actively trading on the ASX. He declined to comment when he was contacted by Street Talk.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said the broker might have been on
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