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ARTICLE · 01 DECEMBER 2023

Instant Messaging – Efficiency At A Cost

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This resulted in the bank being unable to record and retain important communications regarding wholesale energy trading.

United KingdomEnergy and Natural Resources
Probin Dass
Probin Dass
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Recently, UK regulators fined Morgan Stanley over £7 million (later discounted to about £5.5 million) for allowing its wholesale energy product traders to use Whatsapp instant messaging on personal devices. This resulted in the bank being unable to record and retain important communications regarding wholesale energy trading.

Background

The regulator concerned was the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) and they were seeking to enforce a regulation that required the bank to take reasonable steps to ensure that relevant communications were recorded and retained. In the course of investigations, Ofgem discovered that electronic communications regarding wholesale energy trading had been carried out by the bank's employees using WhatsApp, and these had not been recorded by the bank. It was further discovered that the bank could not ensure that those communications were recorded and retained as required by the regulation.

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