By Agency Reporter

Thursday, 4 Nov 2010

washington: Unlicensed high-frequency traders will no longer be able to gain unfettered or ”naked” access to public markets under a rule being considered by the United States‘s Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reuters reported that SEC would meet later on Wednesday to decide whether to require brokerages to have rules in place to protect against potential mishaps from unlicensed traders when brokerages rent out their access to the markets.

The SEC was also expected to propose a controversial plan that would allow it to reward whistle-blowers if the information would lead to a successful enforcement case.

If the SEC decides to crack down on brokerages that rent out their market access to traders, it will be the commission‘s first rule designed to level the playing field between retail investors and high frequency traders.

Even before the May 6 market crash, the SEC had begun contemplating changes to the equity markets. The regulator has proposed rules to make anonymous trading venues known as dark pools more transparent and to ban flash orders that exchanges show to some traders before disclosing them to rest of the market.

Under the SEC proposal, brokerages would have to implement controls to prevent the entry of orders that appear erroneous or exceed credit and capital thresholds.

As required by the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul reform bill, the SEC must set up a programme to reward whistle-blowers if their tips help a commission enforcement case.

That would replace the SEC‘s ”insider trading bounty” programme, which compensates tipsters who give the agency information to file charges against those that use or pass on material nonpublic information to illegally trade securities.

Under the legislation, the SEC could compensate the informant between 10 percent to 30 per cent of the total financial penalty — potentially a sizable amount.

But critics say the provision undermines companies‘ internal controls by giving employees incentives to seek big payouts from the SEC without first going through the firm‘s own compliance departments.

The law could ”remove many opportunities for companies to address potential issues internally before they get reported out to the SEC, and in many cases the company may not even know about the issue before getting a subpoena from the SEC,” a former assistant enforcement director at the SEC and now partner at law firm King & Spalding, Russell Ryan, said.

Ryan also said the SEC would most likely have to divert resources from important investigations to sift through all the tips.

Under the legislation, the SEC must also propose rules to prohibit fraud, manipulation and deception in the $615tn over-the-counter derivatives market. The SEC and fellow market regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are crafting rules to regulate the lucrative off-exchange derivatives industry. The CFTC has already laid out its plans to fight manipulation in the futures markets.

Source: Punch