SYDNEY—Rosherville Pty Ltd has notified the Australian Securities Exchange of its intent to seek Federal Court approval to sue certain former ASX officers and directors for alleged breaches of duty connected to the exchange's abandoned blockchain-based clearing and settlement overhaul. The notice arrived weeks after ASX resolved a separate regulatory case.
The proposed lawsuit follows ASX's June 2026 admission of misleading conduct related to the blockchain project. On July 3, the Federal Court ordered ASX to pay a $14.4 million penalty and an additional $2.1 million toward the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's legal costs, closing the regulator's case against the exchange itself.
ASIC initiated its lawsuit against ASX in August 2024, alleging the exchange lacked a reasonable basis for public statements made in February 2022, when ASX said the project was "progressing well" and on track for an April 2023 launch. ASIC characterized the episode as a collective failure by ASX's board and senior executives.
ASX began exploring a replacement for its Clearing House Electronic Subregister System, known as CHESS, in 2016. The exchange selected a distributed-ledger technology system developed in partnership with New York-based Digital Asset to modernize its core post-trade infrastructure.
In December 2017, ASX was on track to become the first major securities exchange globally to use blockchain for core clearing and settlement services. The project aimed to replace a system dating back decades.
The intended launch faced repeated delays over several years. In November 2022, ASX paused the entire project after an independent Accenture review identified substantial design problems and deficiencies in meeting the exchange's operational and functional requirements for a mission-critical system.
ASX formally abandoned blockchain as the underlying technology for the CHESS replacement in May 2023, announcing it would instead consider more conventional technology solutions for its core clearing and settlement functions.
The proposed lawsuit could establish a precedent for shareholder action, testing whether former ASX leaders can be held accountable for overseeing one of Australia's costliest financial-technology failures.
Rosherville plans a statutory derivative action under sections 236 and 237 of Australia's Corporations Act. If the Federal Court grants permission, Rosherville would bring proceedings directly on ASX's behalf rather than for its own direct benefit—a legal avenue that allows shareholders to act in a company's interest when its directors fail to do so.
ASX did not identify the specific former officials targeted in the proposed action, detail the alleged breaches or disclose the remedies Rosherville intends to seek. The Federal Court has not yet considered whether the proposed case can proceed.
ASX said there are no allegations made against the exchange itself in Rosherville's proposed action, distinguishing the shareholder suit from the recent ASIC case against the corporate entity.
