The London Metal Exchange has told members that it will not challenge regulators’ overhaul of its idiosyncratic telephone-trading system, despite fears that trading could flood into opaque private markets.

The 142-year-old LME has been put in a bind over its so-called inter-office market, where members can trade over the telephone directly with one another or their clients. The controversy shows the EU’s revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive is still meeting resistance in some quarters of the City, more than a year on from its introduction in January 2018.