City trio hit with £4.2m fines by FSA

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined investment bank Credit Suisse 1.75m, market maker Getco Europe 1.4m and broker Instinet Europe 1.05m.

More than 1,000 City firms provide some eight million transaction reports to the FSA every day to help the regulator investigate potential insider trading and market manipulation.

But the FSA said the trio had committed "multiple breaches" in not providing prompt and correct data despite several reminders to the market in 2007 and 2008.

FSA director of markets Alexander Justham said: "Firms must meet their obligation to provide accurate and timely data.

"Without quality data we cannot properly detect and investigate market abuse, identify market wide risks or have a comprehensive understanding of the activities of each firm.

"This data is vital in our efforts to combat financial crime and we will continue to pursue firms that fail to provide quality data."

All three firms co-operated with the FSA at an early stage, gaining a 30 per cent discount on their penalty.

They have also taken steps to improve their procedures, the watchdog added.

Justham said: "The standard of regulatory reporting by these firms fell far short of what the FSA expects and requires."

Credit Suisse said that it "deeply regrets" the breach, while Getco said that the company had taken action to make sure this type of error does not happen again, adding that no investors or market participants had been affected by the problems.

Richard Balarkas, president and chief executive of Instinet Europe, which is owned by Nomura Holdings, was quoted as saying that the firm regrets the problems and that they have now been fixed.

He added: "We've worked hard with the FSA to cooperate with the inquiry and to address the underlying issues and now we're keen to move on."

The biggest penalty imposed by the watchdog for a breach of this kind was in September 2009, when Barclays was fined 2.45m.