Press Release: Antitrust: Commission renders legally binding commitments from Thomson Reuters

The European Commission has adopted a decision that renders legally binding the commitments offered by Thomson Reuters to create a new licence allowing customers, for a monthly fee, to use Reuters Instrument Codes (RICs) for data sourced from Thomson Reuters' competitors. RICs are codes that identify securities, used by financial institutions to retrieve data from Thomson Reuters' real-time datafeeds.

The Commission had concerns that Thomson Reuters' could be abusing its dominant position in the market for consolidated real-time datafeeds through its licensing practices, in breach of EU antitrust rules. To remedy these concerns, Thomson Reuters offered commitments. After two market tests and substantial improvements to the initial offer, the Commission has concluded that the final commitments remedy its competition concerns.