City broker Infinox receives first MiFIR reporting fine

The FCA has imposed its initial penalty for transaction reporting breaches under MiFIR - failures that were detected by the regulator's monitoring system for market abuse. Infinox Capital Ltd, a broker based near the Bank of England, was fined £141,800, a relatively small sum that was reduced further by 30 per cent for co-operation, to £99,200.

By Neasa MacErlean

Infinox was required to report "complete and accurate details" of its transactions in financial instruments "as quickly as possible, and no later than the close of the following working day", under article 26(1) of the UK's Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR). However, it filed no such reports for a six-month period to the end of March 2023. While it was aware of the problems - all undertaken on single-stock trades on its contracts for difference (CFD) desk - it did not report them as required to the Financial Conduct Authority, as explained in the final notice. This meant that over 46,000 trading reports were missing during the period, all occurring in a line of business which the FCA sees as "particularly vulnerable to market abuse" due to its "speculative and leveraged nature". As a result, the regulator describes the breach as "particularly serious".