NEW YORK: The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market will have greater latitude to increase revenue from the sale of market data, under a US appeals court ruling on Tuesday that dismissed a complaint brought by a group of Internet companies and a trade group for brokers.
The court said the Dodd-Frank law stripped it of jurisdiction in the case, forcing it to rule against the Internet companies, grouped together as the Net-Coalition, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), a lobby for the banking, brokerage and asset management industry.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Congress, in enacting Dodd-Frank, eased the review process the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had followed when the exchanges filed for new data fees.
Changes to rules setting fees for market data now “take effect upon filing with the commission,” the court said.
The ruling cleared a potential obstacle to plans by the exchanges to increase revenue from data sales, a key goal, since revenue from trading has sharply declined in recent years.
“We’re gratified by the court’s decision, and we will continue to provide our customers with high quality data at reasonable rates in this competitive market,” said Joseph Christinat, a spokesman for Nasdaq.
“We’re pleased with the decision,” said SEC spokesman John Nester.
The petitioners in the case said the ruling did not resolve the issue of whether the new data fees were “fair and reasonable,” a standard the SEC must enforce and exchanges must comply with.
SIFMA and the Net-Coalition companies would ask the SEC to set aside the rate increases, said Carter Phillips, a partner at Sidley Austin LLP who represented SIFMA in the case.
“It almost certainly will not do that, and we will challenge once again in the DC Circuit the SEC’s failure for not complying with Net-Coalition I,” Phillips said, referring to an earlier ruling in the case. – Reuters
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