Goodbody Stockbrokers fined €1.2m by Central Bank

Muireann Duffy

Goodbody Stockbrokers has been fined €1.225 million by the Central Bank for having breached its obligations under EU market abuse regulations.

A 30 per cent settlement discount was applied to the original €1.75 million after Goodbody admitted the breach.

The breach was under Article 16(2) of the Market Abuse Regulations (MAR), which requires firms to have effective systems in place to detect suspicious orders and transactions.

An investigation conducted by the Central Bank found Goodbody "failed to put in place an effective trade surveillance framework to monitor, detect and report suspicious orders and transactions in relation to market abuse in the period July 2016 to January 2022".

The issue was first identified during the course of the Central Bank's Market Abuse Thematic Review in 2020, with the investigation subsequently finding that Goodbody's trade surveillance "did not operate effectively in respect of risk identification, risk monitoring and governance arrangements, which in turn undermined its ability to detect and report suspected market abuse," the Central Bank's director of enforcement and anti-money laundering, Seána Cunningham, said.

"The Central Bank expects the board and senior management of regulated entities to take full ownership of the governance of market conduct risk.

"This case serves to highlight the importance the Central Bank places on firms’ abilities to monitor, detect and report suspected market abuse, a critical part of protecting the integrity of financial markets," Ms Cunningham added.