Reported by: Jonathan Browning

Sigma Broking Ltd. was fined £530,000 ($596,830) for a series of reporting failures, the Financial Conduct Authority said Thursday. The regulator, which has recently prioritized cases of market abuse, said managers acted negligently while compliance and oversight was “unclear and confused.”

The privately-owned brokerage missed 97 suspicious transactions or orders that should have been reported to the FCA, according to the notice. Sigma expanded its desk in late 2014 to include highly-leveraged trading of contracts-for-difference, but its failures to accurately report the trades increased the risk of insider dealing and other financial crime, the FCA said.

“Firms must accurately report their transactions and bring any suspicious activity to our attention. Sigma failed to do this, which left potential market abuse undetected,” said Mark Steward, the FCA’s Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight.

Read full report: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-06/city-broker-fined-by-fca-for-missing-dozens-of-suspicious-trades