Sarah Court
ASIC secured court orders for civil penalties of $830 million and helped secure more than $580 million in repayments and refunds for consumers and investors during 2025-26, its latest annual report has shown.
ASIC Chair Sarah Court said the results reflected the agency’s enforcement and regulatory work.
‘Our focus is on addressing misconduct and delivering outcomes for consumers, investors and the market,’ Ms Court said.
‘This year, our work resulted in significant penalties as well as repayments and refunds for consumers and investors.’
ASIC commenced 260 formal investigations; 32 civil proceedings involving 65 defendants and completed 1,012 surveillances.
As part of its ambitious program of regulatory and enforcement work during the year, ASIC:
- improved outcomes for consumers experiencing financial hardship and low-income customers, with banks committing more than $160 million in refunds and more than 810,000 customers moving to low-fee accounts
- secured combined penalties of $250 million against ANZ for widespread misconduct across its retail banking division, and for institutional and markets misconduct
- removed more than 19,400 investment scam and phishing websites, and associated scam advertisements on social media
- took enforcement and regulatory action in connection with the Shield and First Guardian collapses, with 15 Federal Court proceedings commenced against 30 defendants, and around 4,000 consumers receiving approximately $421 million in repayments following court enforceable undertakings with Macquarie and Netwealth
- pursued tougher executive accountability through proceedings against 11 former executives and directors of The Star Entertainment Group Ltd
- drove industry-wide remediation in the contracts for difference sector and secured a court order for a record $300.2 million penalty against Union Standard International Group Pty Ltd and two former corporate authorised representatives
- acted to protect confidence in critical financial market infrastructure through ASIC’s inquiry into ASX Group’s governance, capability and risk management
- took action against market participants that had inadequate cyber security protection, while calling for urgent uplift in risk management amid proliferation of frontier AI
- set clearer expectations for private credit funds across disclosure, governance, conflicts, valuation, liquidity and credit risk management, and
- progressed regulatory simplification by removing more than 9,000 pages of legacy web content, updating more than 280 form landing pages and simplifying more than 180 pages of regulatory guidance. More than 97% of previously paper-only forms can now be lodged with ASIC by email.
Ms Court said ASIC would continue to build on the agency’s progress and respond to new and emerging risks.
“Our work in protecting consumers, enforcing the law, and ensuring open and transparent financial markets is more important than ever.”
“Our results show that we are delivering robust results in protecting Australians and strengthening confidence in the financial system. We intend to build on that momentum, and push for even greater impact, in the year ahead.”