Two senators are pushing Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman (SEC) Mary Jo White to explain the agency’s potential disparity between getting information to the public and to private subscribers.
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., chairman of the committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and ranking member Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, wrote after a recent academic study found that company filings electronically submitted to the SEC are, in most cases, made available to private subscribers before the general public.
“This disparity raises significant concerns regarding the management of the data systems that provide investors access to important, and potentially market-moving, information,” their letter to White stated.
The letter cited a speech White gave in June that said when the SEC looked at access to trading data “a related fairness concern is the latency difference between the direct data feeds and the consolidated feeds.”
“The academic study shows that a similar dynamic exists with respect to company filings with the SEC – certain investors are given access to real-time information before it is widely available,” the senators’ letter stated. “This unequal access is even more troubling because it results from SEC-managed systems.”
The pair asked White to explain what her office was doing to understand and address the disparity, and how the agency will avoid future discrepancies in the future.
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