The Central Bank has fined Merrion Stockbrokers €65,000, making it the fourth stockbroking firm to be penalised over failures to report details of regulated market transactions.

Merrion was reprimanded for failing to report 12,020 transactions in next-day reports to the Central Bank between November 2007 and August 2011 and for failing to report correctly whether 45,782 transactions between November 2007 and June 2011 were “buys” or “sells”.

The firm failed to establish “adequate policies and procedures” to comply with the European Communities (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) Regulations 2007, the Central Bank said.

This brings the total penalties imposed by the bank to €275,000 arising from inspections since 2010 into the failure of firms to report financial transactions.

The Central Bank inspected Merrion in May 2011 and found that six trades may have been incorrectly reported as sales instead of purchases.

Once raised with the firm, Merrion identified that it had reported incorrect buy/sell indicators to the Central Bank on “client principal trades” since November 1st, 2007.

“The breaches were unintended and once detected, the firm submitted all transactions reports correctly,” the bank said, pointing out that Merrion did this swiftly.

“The Central Bank’s ability to monitor the markets for market abuse is key to its ability to fulfil the statutory objective of ensuring the proper . . . regulation of financial service providers and markets,” said Peter Oakes, director of enforcement.