Australia's stock exchange operator has apologised and will pay a $20.5 million penalty to the corporate watchdog after admitting to misleading the market.
The deal means ASX Ltd will avoid a trial in relation to three statements made four years ago regarding the status of a multi-million-dollar project to upgrade its clearing and settlement system.
The work on CHESS involved replacing the 25-year-old technology with a distributed ledger, the same technology used by cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
ASX had told investors in a 2022 statement that the project was "progressing well", but the Australian Securities and Investments Commission took legal action, saying that and two other statements were misleading and "exposed market participants to the risk of financial harm".
