Brussels, 14/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 14 December, the European Commission invited comments on commitments offered by Thomson Reuters to address concerns that its licensing practices in relation to the Reuters Instrument Codes (RICs) may be in breach of EU antitrust rules.
RICs are codes that identify securities, used by financial institutions to retrieve data from Thomson Reuters' real-time datafeeds. The Commission has concerns that Thomson Reuters is abusing its dominant market position in the market for consolidated real-time datafeeds by prohibiting customers from using RICs for retrieving data from alternative providers and mapping them for such a purpose to alternative symbols. Thomson Reuters has offered to allow customers to license RICs for the purpose of switching and to use RICs for retrieving data from other providers against a license fee. If the market test confirms that the proposed commitments remedy the competition concerns, the Commission may adopt a decision making the commitment legally binding on Thomson Reuters. Interested parties have up to 25 January 2012 to make any observations. (OL/transl.fl)