Privacy, Business and Law

On October 5, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a plan by the New York Stock Exchange to lower the fees that it charges brokers for real-time stock quotes. Interestingly, discount broker Charles Schwab provided comments on the proposal stating that the overall fee structure “is not fair and reasonable because the fees charged are unrelated to the actual costs of providing the market information.” Thus, Schwab argued, the fee structure overprices quotes and violates Section 11A of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. In its release approving the proposal, the SEC stated that it will issue a concept release addressing such fees. According to one news report, “[a]mong the issues to be addressed in the forthcoming release are the discriminatory impact of the . . . fee structure on on-line investors–and the appropriate standard to be applied in assessing the fairness and reasonableness of market information fees.” News – New York Stock Exchange: SEC Approves Plan to Lower Fees For Access to NYSE Real-Time Quotes, Sec. Law Daily (BNA), Oct. 12, 1999. See also SEC News Digest 99-194 (Oct. 7, 1999) <http://www.sec.gov/news/digests/10-07.txt> (scroll down to “Approval of the Proposed Amendments to the Consolidated Tape Association Plan and the Consolidated Quotation Plan”).