UK regulator the Financial Services Authority has for the first time clamped down on a high-frequency trading firm and the brokers that handle their trades by slapping heavy fines on three of Europe’s main electronic trading houses.

The FSA today fined high-frequency trading firm Getco £1.4m (€1.6m) as well as investment bank Credit Suisse £1.75m and agency broker Instinet Europe £1.05m for "multiple breaches that resulted in failures to provide transaction reports promptly and correctly to the FSA".