Pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF) Quote MTF has severed all ties with Peter Beck, former CEO of defunct Canadian day trading firm Swift Trade.
The Quote MTF board has acquired Beck’s share of the MTF, held by BMRS Holdings, removing any association between the two parties. The transaction has no effect on the 40% liquidity partner equity scheme put in place by Quote MTF earlier this year.
Swift Trade was fined £8 million by UK regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in September 2011 for systematically and deliberately manipulating prices of UK stocks. According to the FSA, Swift Trade engaged in layering, a form of market manipulation, on the London Stock Exchange between 1 January 2007 and 4 January 2008. During this time, Swift Trade is believed to have been responsible for small price movements in a wide range of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 shares that allowed it to make substantial profits.
The FSA said it was not possible to measure the profits Swift Trade made from layering exactly, but asserted that they were in excess of £1.75 million, spanning tens of thousands of trades across different jurisdictions globally.
Swift Trade was dissolved under Canadian law last December and its assets transferred to BRMS Holdings.
“While there were no executive or operational relations between Quote MTF and Swift Trade, nor any trading relationship between the two firms, Quote MTF recognises that ownership of an unregulated day trading company, with the political and regulatory exposure this brings, has proven incompatible with the high standards of independence and transparency that an exchange must observe,” said Christian Bower, member of the board, Quote MTF.
According to Thomson Reuters Equity Market Share Reporter, Quote MTF, which launched in April 2011, traded €685.7 million, or 0.08%, worth of pan-European liquidity in September.