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ARTICLE · 31 JANUARY 2018

Merrill Lynch Receives Substantial Fine For Transaction Reporting Failures

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Without this discount, the fine would have been £49,320,000.

United KingdomLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Mishcon De Reya
Mishcon De Reya

The FCA has imposed a fine of £34,524,000 on Merrill Lynch International (MLI) in the first enforcement action against a firm for failing to report details of trading in exchange traded derivatives under the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). MLI received a 30% discount for early settlement. Without this discount, the fine would have been £49,320,000.

Factual Background

The reporting requirement set out in Article 9 of EMIR (the ETD Reporting Requirement) came into effect from 12 February 2014.  In advance of that date, MLI took steps to design and implement internal policies, procedures, systems and controls to ensure the firm would be in a position to comply with its obligations. From implementation date, it commenced making reports to a trade repository.    It was later discovered that as a result of an error in the static data table within

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