The US major bank Citigroup has been fined £61.6 million (approximately €72 million) by the British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) due to a stock trader's mistake, which led to the accidental sale of shares worth $1.4 billion (€1.3 billion) in 2022. The bank's internal control mechanisms failed, preventing the error from being timely averted.
The incident was triggered by a trader who originally intended to sell shares worth $58 million. However, due to an input error, a sell order for shares valued at $444 billion was generated. Although the bank's control systems blocked part of the erroneous transactions, shares worth about $1.4 billion still reached European stock exchanges before the order could be canceled.
"Some Primary Controls Were Missing or Defective," Explained the FCA. The lack of a comprehensive block, which could have rejected the entire order and prevented any part of it from reaching the market, was particularly criticized.
The mistake led to a five-minute sell-off in the OMX Stockholm 30 stock index and caused chaos on the stock exchanges from Paris to Warsaw. According to Bloomberg, at times a stock market value of about 300 billion euros was wiped out.
The penalty consists of two parts: a sanction by the FCA and another penalty by the British financial regulatory authority PRA.
Before the start of trading on the NYSE, the share price of Citigroup remained unchanged at $64.74.
