EU warns Thomson Reuters over data access Europe's top antitrust official warned on Thursday that remedies proposed by Thomson Reuters, the financial information provider, to settle a probe into the availability of its data to investors were not sufficient. Joaquín Almunia, the European Union's competition commissioner, also cautioned that the long-running case into possible anticompetitive behaviour by the Canadian group had "reached a critical stage." The case, opened in 2009, also illustrates how the increasing automation of trading is raising IT costs for all market participants and putting pressure on providers of market data to open up their feeds. The Commission has argued that the availability of up-to-date data at a reasonable cost to participants is critical to a competitive market. Its initial assessment of the case found that restrictions imposed by Thomson Reuters created "substantial barriers" for customers to switch to alternative providers. It can fine companies up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover for breaching competition rules. Mr Almunia said competitors and investment funds had demanded more concessions. "Recently, we have unsuccessfully market-tested a solution offered by Thomson Reuters to facilitate switching," said Mr Almunia in a speech in Denmark. We have now reached a critical stage in this investigation. If no effective solution can be agreed upon, then we will have to draw the adequate conclusions. The dispute centres around market participants" access to data, the lifeblood of the financial system. Like others, Thomson Reuters uses a short, alphanumeric code that identifies financial instruments and their trading locations. Known as Reuters Investment Codes (RICs), they are used by banks, brokers and other financial institutions to convert information from Thomson Reuters market data feeds to their own systems. The fragmentation of markets into new trading platforms has forced many investors to connect to multiple data feeds, ratcheting up their IT costs. The Commission is examining whether customers could be "locked into" working with Thomson Reuters because rewriting software to replace RICs could be lengthy and costly. Thomson Reuters is one of the financial markets" principal suppliers of data, although its market share has fallen from 34.5 per cent to 30 per cent in four years according to Burton-Taylor International, a consultancy. The share of its rival Bloomberg rose from 27 per cent to 30.4 per cent in the same period. Thomson Reuters has just received feedback from the market test, which it is now analysing. While we are undergoing this review, it would be inappropriate to comment," the group said. However, Thomson Reuters will continue to co-operate fully with the EU while we are engaged in this process. To settle the case, Thomson Reuters in December proposed that it would allow customers to license additional usage rights for RICs and provide them with information to map RICs to rivals" codes. Mr Almunia said the importance of the availability of financial market data had increased in recent years. The availability of accurate and timely financial data at reasonable costs provides transparency which is essential for market participants in assessing trading and investment opportunities. He also drew comparisons between the Thomson Reuters case and the blocked merger between Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext at the start of February. "We want to make sure that undue restrictions on the provision of financial information do not hamper the healthy development of financial services," he said.