The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) faced another setback on Monday when its announcements platform experienced an outage. This latest incident adds to the growing list of challenges the stock exchange operator has encountered in recent years, prompting regulators to scrutinize its governance and ability to deliver market infrastructure.
Here is a recap of some major outages and regulatory investigations the ASX has faced:
In August 2025, the ASX mistakenly tagged one of the country’s top internet providers in an unrelated company’s takeover announcement. This error led to a drastic drop of over A$400 million in the company’s market capitalization before the ASX suspended trading and voided the trades.
In June 2025, Australia’s corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), launched a sweeping inquiry into the ASX. This investigation was triggered by a series of trade-processing glitches and a botched software upgrade that had plagued the stock exchange for years.
In December 2024, the ASX’s Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) experienced an outage just before Christmas. This disruption delayed trade settlement and raised concerns about the ASX’s ability to maintain critical market infrastructure.
August 2024 saw ASIC suing the ASX for allegedly making misleading statements regarding its CHESS replacement project. The ASX had been working on replacing its outdated trading platform since 2015.
In March 2024, ASIC fined the ASX A$1.1 million for breaching market integrity rules by failing to publish pre-trade information for over 8,000 transactions.
In March 2022, the ASX froze trading on its futures market platform, ASX24, for several hours due to a hardware-related issue.
In November 2020, all trading on the ASX was disrupted due to a software issue stemming from its technology partner, Nasdaq. This outage triggered a regulatory probe and parliamentary inquiry.
In September 2016, the ASX halted trading early after a hardware failure caused a delayed and incomplete market open, resulting in the cancellation of over 1,200 trades and 3,000 transactions.
These incidents highlight the ongoing challenges the ASX faces in maintaining a reliable and efficient market infrastructure. Regulators continue to monitor the stock exchange closely to ensure compliance with governance standards and market integrity rules.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
