Get Some Control of that CAT

Politico Pro Morning Money – HMA was featured in Politico Pro’s Morning Money edition on September 20th. The article stated:

FIRST IN MM: SEC, get some control of that CAT — Healthy Markets Association is calling on the SEC to get a better hold on the reins of the Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT, Declan Harty reports. Led by CEO Tyler Gellasch, the institutional investor group filed a rulemaking petition Thursday warning that the massive trading surveillance system’s “flawed structure, governance, and funding model have rendered it too costly, too risky, and too susceptible to legal challenge.” So, Gellasch wrote, the SEC should take ownership of the system, set up a new means to fund it and cut the exchanges’ access to CAT data off, among other changes.

The petition lands at a critical moment for the CAT’s future. Conservatives have recently launched a legal campaign to knock down the system, while Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities and the American Securities Association have sued over who will pay for it. And while Gellasch agrees with many of the criticisms, the former SEC official adds that the CAT’s future is too important to leave up to the courts.

“The CAT can’t simply be turned off without incurring significant costs, uncertainty, and catastrophic risks to our markets,” Gellasch wrote.

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment. (Weblink)