The logo of the ANZ Banking Group is displayed in the window of a newly opened branch in central Sydney, Australia, April 30, 2016. Reuters/David Gray Australia’s competition regulator has taken the ANZ and Macquarie banks to court, claiming traders at the institutions colluded in attempts to manipulate the exchange rate for the Malaysian ringgit.

The banks have admitted the attempted cartel trading and agreed to pay fines of $15 million. The Federal Court now decides the final amount of the fines.

The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) says a trader at Macquarie, traders at ANZ and a number of other banks in Singapore used private online chatrooms to discuss the benchmark rate for the Malaysian ringgit.

“On various dates in 2011, traders employed by ANZ and the Macquarie trader attempted to make arrangements with other banks that particular submitting banks would make high or low submissions to the ABS in relation to the ABS (Association of Banks in Singapore) MYR Fixing Rate,” the ACCC says.

The ACCC says the banks sought to influence the fixing rate published on that day in breach of the cartel provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.

The matter was previously investigated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore which completed a review and supervisory action in 2013 involving 20 banks operating in Singapore.

Three of the four major banks — NAB, ANZ and Westpac — also face action by ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) for allegedly manipulating the bank bill swap rate in Australia.

ACCC Chairman Rod Sims says the latest proceedings are a reminder that cartel laws apply to financial markets, and capture cartel conduct by firms that carry on business in Australia, regardless of where that conduct occurred.

“The ACCC recognizes the integrity of foreign exchange markets plays a fundamental role in our market economy,” he says.

ANZ has admitted to 10 instances of attempted cartel conduct and Macquarie to eight.

The ANZ has agreed to $9 million penalty plus costs. Macquarie has agreed to $6 million.

ANZ chief risk officer Nigel Williams said: “We have an obligation to ensure our people, both here in Australia and overseas, comply with the law at all times.

“While there is no evidence that FX benchmarks in Singapore were successfully influenced, we accept responsibility and apologize for the actions of our former employees. We have made significant improvements to our compliance, training and monitoring systems to ensure this does not happen again.”

The ACCC estimates that the annual turnover of MYR non-deliverable forward contracts in Australia in 2011 was $9 billion to $10 billion.