The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has formally laid criminal cartel charges against ANZ, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and six senior executives.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Those charged include ANZ's global head of treasury, Rick Moscati, and the chairman of Citigroup's operations in Australia, Stephen Roberts.
The charges relate to the sale of $A2.5 billion ANZ shares to institutional investors in August 2015.
The sale was organised and underwritten by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and third big global bank JP Morgan to boost ANZ's balance sheet in accordance with demands from the bank regulator APRA.
JP Morgan has not been charged.
Apart from Mr Moscati and Mr Roberts, those charged include Citigroup's current managing director John McLean and global head of foreign exchange trading Itay Tuchman as well as Deutsche Bank's former Australian chief executive Michael Ormaechea and Michael Richardson, who has also left the bank.
The matter is listed before the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney on 3 July, 2018.
Following the Royal Commission inquiry into banks in Australia, New Zealand's leading banks were told to prove they are not ripping off their customers like their Australian counterparts have been doing.
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Reserve Bank spoke with the heads of New Zealand banks at the time seeking concrete evidence the same was not happening.
Much of New Zealand's financial sector is run by local offshoots of the same organisations now under the gun across the Tasman.
FMA chief executive Rob Everett said there was no evidence that what happened in Australia had occurred in New Zealand.
-ABC / RNZ