Background

Creation of NMS Plan (catnmsplan.com)

On July 11, 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to adopt Rule 613 under Regulation NMS requiring the national securities exchanges and national securities associations listed below (collectively, the SROs) to submit an NMS plan (Plan) to the SEC to create, implement, and maintain a consolidated audit trail (CAT).

Guiding Principles

In creating a Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) pursuant to SEC Rule 613, the SROs have developed the following Guiding Principles:

• The CAT must meet the specific requirements of Rule 613 and achieve the primary goal of creating a single, comprehensive audit trail to enhance regulators’ ability to surveil the U.S. markets in an effective and efficient way.

• The reporting requirements and technology infrastructure developed must be adaptable to changing market structures and reflective of trading practices, as well as scalable to increasing market volumes.

• The costs of developing, implementing, and operating the CAT should be minimized to the extent possible. To this end, existing reporting structures and technology interfaces will be utilized where practicable.
• Industry input is a critical component in the creation of the CAT. The SROs will consider industry feedback before decisions are made with respect to reporting requirements and cost allocation models.