Interesting development in the Australian corporate regulator's insider trading conflict of interest lawsuit against Citigroup (that's Citigroup's Sydney headquarters in the photo).

The Australian Financial Markets Association (AFMA), which represents investment banks and brokers, has made a last minute bid to intervene in the case which starts at the end of this month.

I have been told by an absolutely unimpeachable source that AFMA has poked its head up on the request of a prominent New York Investment bank. Not surprising given that if the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) wins this case, it could send a signal to regulators around the world on how to tackle proprietary trading by investment banks where Wall Street's giants, sitting on privileged information, play the market with their own capital. Sounds like the banks in New York are pretty worried.

I broke the story about the latest development here.

If you want to learn more about the case, you can listen to a radio interview I did last year here.