巴克萊打贏高頻交易官司 Judge dismisses HFT case against Barclays and US exchanges

A district court judge in the US has thrown out investor lawsuits against Barclays and a host of exchanges, dismissing claims that the bank rigged its “dark pool” trading venue in favour of high-frequency traders.

美國地方法院的一名法官拒絕受理投資者起訴巴克萊(Barclays)和衆多交易所的官司，駁回了關於該行操縱其“暗池”交易平臺、使之有利於高頻交易商的指控。

The multi-district litigation was part of a litany of claims set off by Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Michael Lewis’s best-selling book published last year. In it, Mr Lewis argued that high-frequency traders were able to gain an unfair advantage because stock exchanges and “dark pools” — broker-run trading venues that allow buyers and sellers to swap shares with greater anonymity — had enabled those traders to obtain and trade on market data faster than other investors.

這一跨區訴訟是《閃電小子》(Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt)一書引發的諸多索賠案之一。《閃電小子》是一本去年出版的暢銷書，作者是邁克爾劉易斯(Michael Lewis)。劉易斯在該書中聲稱，由於股市和“暗池”令高頻交易商能夠比其他投資者更快獲得市場數據並據此交易，這些交易商得以獲得了一項不公平的優勢。所謂“暗池”，是指經紀商運營的交易平臺，允許買賣雙方以更大的匿名性換股。

But judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday that the plaintiffs did not allege any actions that met the definition of “manipulative acts”, or how those actions could have affected the price at which securities traded in the dark pool.

不過，紐約南區地方法院法官傑西弗曼(Jesse Furman)週三表示，原告們未陳述任何符合“操縱行爲”定義的行動，也未陳述這些行動如何能夠影響暗池中交易的證券的價格。

In a statement, Barclays said it was “pleased with the court’s thorough and well-reasoned decision dismissing all the allegations in the complaints . . . and concluding that the plaintiffs were unable to identify any materially false or misleading statements by Barclays”.

在一份聲明中，巴克萊表示，“法院決定駁回申訴中的所有指控……並認定原告們未能指明巴克萊有任何重大不實或誤導性陳述。對這一週到而又理由充分的裁決”，公司“甚感欣慰”。

Barclays and Credit Suisse are the biggest operators of dark pools in the US, according to Tabb Group, a market-research firm. Such venues were created as a way for institutional investors to place large orders in the $23tn US stock market without disadvantaging themselves by signalling any potentially price-moving trades.

根據市場研究公司Tabb集團(Tabb Group)的說法，巴克萊和瑞士信貸(Credit Suisse)是美國最大的暗池運營商。建立這種交易平臺，是爲機構投資者提供一種渠道，令它們能在美國總值23萬億美元的股市中下大單，並且不會因釋放任何可能影響價格走勢的信號而使自己處於不利地位。

The venues have come under increasingly heavy regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Earlier this month ITG, the agency brokerage, said it would pay a record fine of about $20m to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it operated a “secret trading desk” and misused information of its dark-pool customers.

最近幾年，這些交易平臺已開始受到日益嚴格的監管審查。本月早些時候，機構經紀商ITG表示，該公司將支付約2000萬美元的創紀錄罰金，以就美國證交會(SEC)的多項指控達成和解。這些指控稱，該公司運營着一個“祕密交易部門”，並不當使用其暗池客戶的信息。

In his ruling on Wednesday, judge Furman said Mr Lewis’s book “may well highlight inequalities in the structure of the nation’s financial system and the desirability for, or necessity of, reform. For the most part, however, those questions are not for the courts, but for commentators, private and semi-public entities (including the stock exchanges), and the political branches of government.”

週三，弗曼法官在其裁決中表示，劉易斯的書“很可能凸顯出了國家金融體系結構中的不平等，以及實施改革的好處或必要性。但總的來說，這些問題不該由法院回答，而應由評論人士、私人實體和半公共實體（包括股票交易所）、以及政府的政治部門來回答。”