EU to assess Thomson Reuters proposal on RICs

Reuters Instrument Codes identify stocks, bonds and other financial instruments on its systems. Some competitors and the EU Commission argue Thomson Reuters’ controlling access to them stifles competition in the market for financial data. The commission launched an anti-trust investigation in 2009 to discover whether Thomson Reuters may be abusing its dominant market position in the market for consolidated real-time datafeeds in violation of EU competition law.

“Customers who want to switch would have to remove RICs from their internal applications and replace them with alternative codes. This is technically challenging and costly and often prevents customers from switching," the Commission, which acts as the European Union competition watchdog, said in a statement.

In December, Thomson Reuters offered to open its classification to competitors as long as they pay a licensing fee. But, in a test conducted by the Commission, competitors and trading firms then demanded more.

The Commission said the new proposal included reduced fees and a simplified fee structure which improved on earlier concessions “in several regards”. It will now assess with interested third parties over four weeks whether the revised plan addressed the concerns. ■