Goldman Sachs fined £34m for MiFID reporting breaches

The UK’s financial services regulator has fined Goldman Sachs £34.3m (€40m) for transaction reporting failures that lasted almost a decade.

In a statement published today, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said Goldman Sachs had failed to “provide accurate and timely reporting” for more than 220m transactions between November 2007 and March 2017.

The fine follows a £27.6m penalty imposed on UBS on 19 March, relating to more than 135m transaction reports over a similar timeframe. In total, the FCA has fined 14 companies for similar offences, charging them more than £94m collectively.

The breaches related to reporting requirements brought in under the first Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which came into force in late 2007.

According to the FCA, Goldman Sachs “failed to take reasonable care to organise and control its affairs responsibly and effectively in respect of its transaction reporting”. It did not provide accurate reports for roughly 213.6m transactions, and reported 6.6m transactions to the FCA that were not reportable.

“These failings related to aspects of [Goldman Sachs’] change management processes, its maintenance of the counterparty reference data used in its reporting and how it tested whether all the transactions it reported to the FCA were accurate and complete,” the regulator said.

Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, added: “The failings in this case demonstrate a failure over an extended period to manage and test controls that are vitally important to the integrity of our markets.

“These were serious and prolonged failures. We expect all firms will take this opportunity to ensure they can fully detail their activity and are regularly checking their systems so any problems are detected and remedied promptly, unlike in this case.”

In its statement regarding UBS earlier this month, the FCA said the Swiss investment bank failed to provide accurate data relating to approximately 86.7m reportable transactions, and mistakenly reported 49.1m transactions to the FCA that were not reportable.