The CSSF, pictured, is Luxembourg's financial services monitoring authority Nader Ghavami

The CSSF, pictured, is Luxembourg's financial services monitoring authority Nader Ghavami

The watchdog issued two fines to the interbank market and online trading firm for failures identified during an on-site inspection which breach the Market Abuse Act.

The first sanction related to notification measures and procedures for preventing and reporting abusive practices or suspicious orders or transactions. According to the CSSF, the company is in breach of Article 16 of the European Market Abuse Regulation which states that, where a person “has reasonable grounds to suspect that an order or transaction in any financial instrument, whether placed or executed on or outside a trading platform, could constitute insider dealing, market manipulation or attempted insider trading or market manipulation, it shall notify the competent authority without delay.”

The second fine responds to the fact that HMS Lux “knowingly provided the CSSF with incomplete information to requests for information [...] in the context of market abuse investigations.” HMS Lux has three months to file an appeal against the sanctions.

Established in Luxembourg since 1972, HMS Lux is an inter-dealer brokerage firm servicing banks, hedge funds, active traders and investors.

The announcement was made in a CSSF press release dated 30 August 2019.