SYDNEY, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) was hit by an outage to its announcements platform on Monday, the latest setback for the stock exchange operator that is already under scrutiny from regulators over its governance and ability to deliver market infrastructure. Here is a look at the major outages and regulatory […]
Business
Factbox-Outage is latest problem to hit Australian stock exchange operator ASX
Audio By Carbonatix
SYDNEY, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) was hit by an outage to its announcements platform on Monday, the latest setback for the stock exchange operator that is already under scrutiny from regulators over its governance and ability to deliver market infrastructure.
Here is a look at the major outages and regulatory investigations the ASX has faced in recent years:
August 2025 – Naming mix-up
The ASX incorrectly tagged one of the country’s top internet providers in an unrelated company’s takeover announcement, wiping more than A$400 million ($261.76 million) from the company’s market capitalisation, before ASX suspended the stock from trading and said it was cancelling the trades.
June 2025 – ASIC launches sweeping inquiry into the ASX
Australia’s corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), begins an investigation into the ASX, escalating tensions that have simmered for years amid a botched software upgrade and a series of trade-processing glitches.
December 2024 – CHESS outage
The ASX’s Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) breaks down in the week before Christmas.
The outage delayed the settlement of trades and raised concerns about the ASX’s ability to maintain critical market infrastructure.
August 2024 – ASIC sues ASX
ASIC sues the ASX for making alleged misleading statements related to its CHESS replacement project, including that it was “on-track for go-live” and “progressing well”.
The ASX had been attempting to replace the three-decade-old platform used to clear and settle trades since 2015.
March 2024 – ASX fined for breaching market rules
ASIC fines the ASX A$1.1 million for breaching market integrity rules. It said the ASX failed to publish pre-trade information for more than 8,000 transactions.
March 2022 – Futures and options market outage
The ASX froze trading on ASX24, its futures market trading platform, for several hours after a “hardware-related issue”.
November 2020 – Trading disrupted after software issue
All trading was disrupted due to a software issue stemming from the ASX’s technology partner Nasdaq. The outage triggered a regulatory probe and parliamentary inquiry.
September 2016 – Market halted after hardware failure
The ASX closed trading early after a hardware failure caused a delayed and incomplete open. The ASX cancelled 1,221 trades and 3,062 transactions.
($1 = 1.5281 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)