The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has sanctioned a monetary penalty of £1,087,300 against Sigma Broking Limited due to significant failures in transaction reporting spanning five years. The enforcement action came after the FCA’s monitoring systems identified discrepancies in the reports that Sigma submitted.
Issues related to Sigma’s transaction reports were initially communicated to the firm in May 2023. By January 2024, the firm acknowledged that around 984,000 erroneous reports had been submitted. An independent review later confirmed in February 2025 that the exact count of incorrect reports stood at 924,584, which represented nearly all transactions managed by the firm from December 1, 2018, to December 1, 2023.
The root cause of these failures can be traced back to improper system configurations and was exacerbated by deficiencies in Sigma’s reporting processes that allowed these problems to remain unaddressed for an extended period.
This recent penalty marks the second instance of regulatory action against Sigma concerning inadequacies in transaction reporting, which are critical for the FCA’s efforts in identifying and investigating market abuses effectively. The previous enforcement action occurred in October 2022, where the FCA penalized Sigma £531,600 for failing to report on 56,000 transactions and for not flagging 97 suspicious activities between December 2014 and August 2016. The FCA also took steps against three directors, cumulatively fining them over £200,000, with two facing bans.
The implications of such reporting failures are significant, as they hinder the FCA’s ability to effectively monitor market integrity and enforce regulations aimed at preventing misconduct.