The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined the UK operations of Credit Suisse a total of £5.6 million for failing to adequately supervise traders in its investment banking division who deliberately mispriced the asset backed securities they held. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has also issued the US division of the bank, Credit Suisse Securities, with a US$350,000 (£187,400) penalty as a result of technical mishap that caused the bank to trade ahead of clients’ orders in breach of stock market rules.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unveiled a new one-stop online reference site to assist mutual funds in their anti-money laundering (AML) compliance efforts. It has also launched a new centralised phone line specifically for securities firms to report the filing of a suspicious activity report (SAR) that may require immediate attention by the SEC.

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The Irish Stock Exchange has released plans to establish an independent supervisory body to combat insider trading and market abuse and has appointed ex-Financial Services Authority (FSA) market abuse head Mike Duignan to manage the new body.

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French bank Société Générale is being fined €4 million over “grave deficiencies” in its internal controls that failed to prevent €4.9 billion in losses last year. The fine is at the upper end of the maximum possible of €5 million.

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According to the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) annual report, covering 1 April 2007 through 31 March 2008, the regulator levied £4.45 million in financial penalties during the year, down from £14.66 million the year before. Enforcement costs were also lower, coming in at £29.4 million versus £32.1 million the year before.

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The Investment Management Association (IMA) has raised concerns about the lack of transparency in the UK marketplace as a result of MiFID’s introduction. The trade body discussed the lack of consistency with the UK Financial Services Authority at a roundtable a couple of weeks ago and has since sent a letter to the regulator asking it to take action.

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The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) has appointed three senior advisors with a strong markets background to its wholesale and institutional business unit.

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The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has named former director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Adair Turner as the successor to Callum McCarthy as chairman of the UK regulator when he leaves the post in September.

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Will passports be valid in non-transposed countries? Is there an XML-based feed of market transparency information? Can I execute a client order over-the-counter without express consent? Will any Member States exercise their right to extend pre- or post-trade transparency requirements beyond equities for Regulated Markets (RMs)? Can branches be monitored by host state regulators using host state rules? When will a list of Systematic Internalisers be made public?

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The Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) has, in what it says is a “final step to start the exchange of transaction reporting in accordance with MiFID”, announced two new measures related to transaction reporting which it hopes will “facilitate full implementation… in a cost-effective way and without undue delays”.

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The market is still wrestling with questions around MiFID implementation, including outstanding issues on passporting, gold plating, transaction reporting and timing of implementation across the EU. This is despite receiving final Level 3 guidelines from the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) covering inducements, best execution, passporting and transaction reporting.

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The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has proposed new rules requiring the recording of telephone lines and retention of electronic communications for voice conversations or activities that involve the receipt of client orders and the negotiating, agreeing and arranging of transactions across equities, bonds and financial commodities and derivatives. Records must be kept for three years.

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The number of EU member states that have implemented MiFID is creeping up slowly. However, as it now seems likely a number of member states will miss the deadline, the question of what happens legally is coming to the fore.

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For Europe’s financial markets regulators, the introduction of MiFID looks set to intensify the challenge of identifying market abuse and insider trading, as trading activity in stocks is spread across multiple venues. This challenge is compounded by the surge in volumes created by the rising use of algorithmic trading techniques.

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Although it has not responded to the European Commission’s survey on state of play on MiFID transposition, France is offering some clues on its progress in this regard in the recently published AMF Working Program on Regulation. This document provides an overview of the French regulator’s progress and approach across a number of domestic, European and international directives, including MiFID.

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The U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA) will wait until the first quarter of 2008 to begin a risk-based review of whether firms affected by MIFID have implemented the requirements appropriately, according to its 2007/8 business plan published this month. The regulator will, however, monitor and evaluate firms’ MiFID preparations ahead of the November deadline through a combination of firm-specific and thematic work.

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German investment firms don’t expect to meet the MiFID implementation deadline of November 2007 and are proposing to push back the date for achieving compliance to April 2008, according to the head of BVI – German Investment and Asset Management Association, a trade group for German fund managers.

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A large number of respondents to the consultation on Level 3 work from the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) had the same message: that the programme is too ambitious, and that it should instead focus on a producing a smaller list of deliverables before January next year, the deadline for transposition of MiFID’s directives into national law.

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The Joint Implementation Plan for MiFID paper published by the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA) and HM Treasury may have offered few surprises. But its publication – along with that of two other papers covering best execution and systems and controls – as well as the FSA’s hosting of a one-day conference on the MiFID regulation on May 15, underscores the U.K. regulators’ commitment to seeing its implementation through in a thorough manner.

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