Proposed Structure of Trading Facilities for a New Exchange to be Established by Aequitas Innovations Inc. (the Proposed Structure)

September 25, 2013

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Proposed Structure of Trading Facilities for a New Exchange to be Established by Aequitas Innovations Inc. (the Proposed Structure)

Letter Summary:

In respect of all of our responses below, we have considered Hybrid to be in substance a dark market with limited additional publicly available order information that does not constitute quotas, and OPR quote/order protection does not apply under the current regime.

Overview of the Council’s Comments:

As indicated above, we believe that Hybrid could be considered within the dark liquidity framework, given that pricing is with reference to the NBBO, orders need not be protected, and that Hybrid does not offer order-level transparency similar to existing
visible marketplaces. On balance, we believe that Hybrid displays more features of a dark market than a lit market and should be considered under that regulatory regime with the potential for rule revisions to accommodate for or regulate the additional features that Hybrid seeks to provide in addition to those of other dark markets.