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- A speech given by the Bank of England’s deputy governor in July 2017 was leaked to a trader one hour and 16 minutes ahead of time, pushing the British pound higher, The Times of London reported on Wednesday.
- Bank of England’s accredited market news provider Livesquawk, leaked the draft of the speech, due to be made by Ben Broadbent, to a foreign-exchange trader, according to The Times of London.
- The pound rose initially on July 2017 as traders expected BOE’s Broadbent to vote for a rise in interest rates.
- In December 2019, the BOE said it was investigating after a report that hedge funds paid for access to briefing broadcasts that the rest of the public heard on a delay, giving the traders early access to market-moving information.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A speech given by the Bank of England’s deputy governor in July 2017 was leaked to a trader one hour and 16 minutes ahead of time, The Times of London reported on Wednesday.
The Times article claims that the Bank of England’s accredited market news provider, Livesquawk, leaked the draft of the speech to a foreign-exchange trader.
Livesquawk, as an official partner, had access to early copies of the speech as well as other sensitive material from the Bank of England.
The pound rose initially 0.4% against the dollar on July 2017 as traders expected BOE’s Broadbent to vote for a rise in interest rates. However, the currency later fell by 0.2% against the dollar as the deputy governor offered no clues on the course of monetary policy. This according to Bloomberg.
“Anyone with early sight of the speech would have been able to trade the moves for profit. Proof that Livesquawk provided sensitive information to a trader supports separate claims seen by The Times that the company encouraged staff to break embargoes to give clients an ‘edge’. The detailed allegations cannot be disclosed because they are part of court proceedings,” The Times story claims.
The Bank of England told The Times it was not aware of a breach of embargo by Livesquawk. “The Bank removed Livesquawk’s access to embargoed material in March 2018,” a spokesman told The Times.
The Times story claims that a copy of the speech was sent by Livesquawk to a trader named Ryan Littlestone who blogged in 2019 that Livesquawk made him “plenty of pips by getting the fastest to a headline.” Business Insider has not been able to independently verify these claims.
Mr Littlestone, however, told The Times that Livesquawk’s staff accidentally posted this speech in a private chat used for market commentary with the Livesquawk team and he realized it was done in error and did not “reprint, pass on any information in the speech or act in any way that would be deemed to be detrimental to the nature of Livesquawk’s association with embargoed data or news.”
Livesquawk was not immediately available for a comment when contacted by Business Insider. The company, however, told The Times of London that it took immediate action to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, the Bank of England told Business Insider that it did not have anything further to add to the story.
This isn’t the first time the Bank of England’s clearance process has come under question. In December, 2019, the bank said it was investigating after a report that hedge funds paid for access to briefing broadcasts that the rest of the public heard on a delay, giving the traders early access to market-moving information.
The central bank discovered one of its third-party suppliers was misusing an audio feed of its press conferences and distributing it to high-speed traders, following inquiries by the Times of London.
The feed gave the traders a headstart of up to eight seconds on rivals watching the official broadcast, The Times reported.
“We have recently identified that an audio feed of certain of the Bank press conferences — installed only to act as a back-up in case the video feed failed — has been misused by a third party supplier to the Bank since earlier this year to supply services to other external clients,” the Bank of England said in a statement in December.