ESMA dishes DTCC first trade repository fine

Europe’s securities watchdog has issued the first ever fine to a trade repository, slapping a $64,000 penalty to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) stated the fine to DTCC was related to “negligently failing to put in place systems capable of providing regulators with direct and immediate access to derivatives trading data.”

ESMA also stated that the DTCC’s trade repository, DDRL, failed to provide direct access to derivatives data from 21 March 2014 to 15 December 2014. This meant access delays to derivatives data increases from two days to 62 days after reporting, affecting around 2.6 billion reports.

ESMA began supervision of trade repositories in 2013 under the trade reporting obligations set by EMIR. DDRL is one of six trade repositories registered to collect data in Europe.

Last year, ESMA carried out a risk-based assessment related to the supervision of trade repositories, and identified a number of key risks over data quality, data access and information security risks.