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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/financialservices/0,3800010322,39163903,00.htm

Outage hits London Metal Exchange trading
Back to old-fashioned shouting across the floor...

By Tim Ferguson

Published: Tuesday 07 November 2006

The London Metal Exchange (LME) suffered an outage of its electronic trading system this week, significantly impacting activity on the trading floor.

The problem first occurred on Monday following an update to the system carried out over the weekend. Despite attempts at a controlled start at midday today, the system remained out of commission all day.

The LME has not disclosed what the problem is but an Exchange spokesman told silicon.com that although trading has been compromised, LME members are still able to trade using open 'outcry' and phone trading methods.

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An LME spokesman told silicon.com the systems team will be rolling the software back at midnight tonight to the version in use before the failed update. Normal service can then be resumed while the problem with the new version is dealt with, he said.

The Exchange is about to launch online small contract trading for copper, aluminium and zinc, which will be dependent on the electronic trading system. However, the LME is confident the present problem will not affect this and remains committed to the 20 November launch, said the spokesman.