The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has been fined A$20.5 million by the Federal Court after an investigation found it misstated the status of a blockchain‑based platform project. In 2017 ASX announced plans to replace its CHESS trading platform, built on COBOL and OpenVMS, with a distributed‑ledger system. The regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), sued in 2024, alleging the ASX’s claim that the project was “progressing well” was misleading. The Federal Court said ASX admitted its errors and ordered the fine, plus A$3 million in costs. A parliamentary report identified three causes: unclear objectives, overlapping planning and implementation phases, and insufficient identification of scalability risks. The settlement marks a setback for ASX’s distributed‑ledger ambitions and underscores regulatory scrutiny of public company statements.