The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has fined Merrill Lynch International for incorrectly reporting 35,034,810 transactions, and failing to report another 121,387 from November 2007 to November 2014.
The US bank was required to report the trades under the Markets if Financial Instruments Directive – MiFID.
The fine gives some interesting insight into the world many energy traders are about to enter. Transaction reporting of standard power and gas trades begins in October under REMIT. And in 2017, energy firms caught by MiFID II will need to report under that legislation too.
Interestingly, the FCA had this to say about the size of the fine: “The FCA has used a penalty of £1.50 per line of incorrect or non-reported data for the first time rather than the £1.00 per line used in the three most recent transaction reporting cases because past fines have not been high enough to achieve credible deterrence.”