The country’s regulator yesterday stated that Formax, a forex trading platform headquartered in China, has removed a media release from its group website that falsely claimed that an Australian subsidiary had its licence suspended as part of a normal restructuring process. That release also wrongly asserted the suspension would be lifted when the restructuring was completed.

The release was taken off the website by Formax following concerns raised by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC said in a statement.

The wholly-owned subsidiary is called Australian Capital Markets Advisory Services Pty Ltd.

The suspension by ASIC of such a licence is “not a normal practice that occurs when an entity restructures”, the regulator said.

“ASIC undertakes all action for good reason. It is important that industry and investors understand those reasons. In this case we were concerned to discover an overseas parent commenting in a way that misrepresented the action ASIC had taken and was likely to mislead investors,” Cathie Armour, ASIC commissioner, said.

On 4 August 2015, ASIC suspended the Australian Financial Services licence (AFSL) of retail over-the-counter derivative provider ACMAS until 30 October 2015 because that entity had ceased to provide financial services in Australia; the suspension was subsequently extended to 27 November 2015. The regulator is continuing to scrutinise the retail market for trading OTC derivatives, such as margin foreign exchange and binary options.

ASIC has highlighted a number of actions, such as:

- Following ASIC's concerns, Ingot Brokers (Australia) Pty Ltd rectifying its "cash and cash equivalents" arrangements to comply with its financial resource requirements;

- OCM Online Capital Markets Pty Ltd paying $30,600 in penalties after ASIC issued three infringement notices for false or misleading online advertising;

- cancelling the AFSL of LSG Group Pty Ltd;

- British Virgin Island company FIBO Group Limited and Cyprus company Trading Point of Financial Instruments Limited (also known by the trading name XM.com) agreeing to cease providing unlicensed financial services to Australians; and

- suspending the AFS licence of Australian Capital Advisory Services Pty Ltd on the grounds it had ceased providing financial services after a change of control.