ASIC issues no-action letters for Richard White after $200m WiseTech share sales

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has told WiseTech Global it will not bring enforcement action against founder Richard White and two employees over share sales made during a company blackout period, issuing no-action letters that end ASIC’s insider trading probe into those people. The regulator also informed the company that it had closed a separate governance investigation into WiseTech that began in late 2024 and had issued the company its own no-action letter. According to reporting, White sold more than $200 million of WiseTech shares while a blackout applied; WiseTech disclosed ASIC’s letters to the ASX and said independent chair Raelene Murphy viewed the outcomes as allowing the board and management to concentrate on long-term shareholder value. ASIC explicitly cautioned that its decision not to pursue enforcement ‘‘should not be interpreted as making any finding about the conduct concerned.’’

A spokesperson for ASIC told reporters the regulator could not comment further while a separate probe continued. That remaining investigation, also into alleged share trading, concerns another individual who is not a WiseTech employee and remains open. The regulator did not name that person in its public comments. WiseTech has said Richard White sought legal advice before conducting the trades, a claim reported in coverage of the disclosures; ASIC declined to elaborate beyond its published statement. WiseTech’s share price, noted in reporting, had closed at $33.55 on the Wednesday before the disclosure, significantly lower than its 2024 peak, a detail the company has highlighted as background to market reactions though ASIC’s letters relate strictly to enforcement decisions. The cessation of ASIC’s specific insider trading enquiry into White and the two employees does not constitute a finding of innocence or culpability, because the regulator itself warned the no-action letters were not such a finding. Reporting across Australian outlets — including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review — presents the central facts consistently: ASIC issued no-action letters to White, two employees and to WiseTech on the governance matter, while another unrelated trading inquiry continues. For stakeholders, the letters remove a major regulatory overhang tied to the company’s governance and past trading questions, but they leave open the prospect of further inquiry in the separate probe. Market participants and the company now have a clearer enforcement posture from ASIC on the matters it has closed, even as the regulator's statement and WiseTech’s disclosure preserve legal and factual uncertainty about conduct during the blackout period. The public record in the cited reporting contains no named details about the person still under investigation, no public finding of misconduct by ASIC in the closed matters, and no court action arising from the resolved probes. Coverage by other Australian titles echoed the reporting that ASIC had ‘‘dropped’’ or ‘‘cleared’’ its inquiry into White, a characterization that reflects the issuance of no-action letters but not an adjudication about the trading conduct itself.