Litigation and Enforcement

ESMA fines UnaVista trade repository €238,500 for EMIR data failures

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has fined trade repository UnaVista Limited €238,500 for eight breaches of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).
The breaches relate to failures in ensuring the integrity of data and providing direct and immediate access to regulators. The breaches, committed between 2016 and 2018, were found to have resulted from negligence on the part of UnaVista.

UnaVista failed to ensure the integrity of the data reported to it due to various data processing incidents, including:

• incorrect field ordering logic;
• incorrect mapping rules; and
• crossed date boundaries.
The trade repository also failed to provide direct and immediate access to regulators by:

• generating incorrect or unreliable reports for regulators, due to incorrect field ordering logic, incorrect mapping rules and crossed date boundaries; and
• not providing regulators with direct and immediate access to trade state reports and historic trade state reports, due to missed data exports and to non-existent functionality respectively.

In calculating the fine, ESMA considered both aggravating and mitigating factors provided for in EMIR and the common root causes for some of the infringements were taken into account.

UnaVista may appeal against this decision to the Joint Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities.