巴克莱打赢高频交易官司 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.

美国地方法院的一名法官拒绝受理投资者起诉巴克莱(Barclays)和众多交易所的官司，驳回了关于该行操纵其“暗池”交易平台、使之有利于高频交易商的指控。

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.

这一跨区诉讼是《闪电小子》(Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt)一书引发的诸多索赔案之一。《闪电小子》是一本去年出版的畅销书，作者是迈克尔刘易斯(Michael Lewis)。刘易斯在该书中声称，由于股市和“暗池”令高频交易商能够比其他投资者更快获得市场数据并据此交易，这些交易商得以获得了一项不公平的优势。所谓“暗池”，是指经纪商运营的交易平台，允许买卖双方以更大的匿名性换股。

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.

不过，纽约南区地方法院法官杰西弗曼(Jesse Furman)周三表示，原告们未陈述任何符合“操纵行为”定义的行动，也未陈述这些行动如何能够影响暗池中交易的证券的价格。

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”.

在一份声明中，巴克莱表示，“法院决定驳回申诉中的所有指控……并认定原告们未能指明巴克莱有任何重大不实或误导性陈述。对这一周到而又理由充分的裁决”，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.

根据市场研究公司Tabb集团(Tabb Group)的说法，巴克莱和瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)是美国最大的暗池运营商。建立这种交易平台，是为机构投资者提供一种渠道，令它们能在美国总值23万亿美元的股市中下大单，并且不会因释放任何可能影响价格走势的信号而使自己处于不利地位。

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.

最近几年，这些交易平台已开始受到日益严格的监管审查。本月早些时候，机构经纪商ITG表示，该公司将支付约2000万美元的创纪录罚金，以就美国证交会(SEC)的多项指控达成和解。这些指控称，该公司运营着一个“秘密交易部门”，并不当使用其暗池客户的信息。

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.”

周三，弗曼法官在其裁决中表示，刘易斯的书“很可能凸显出了国家金融体系结构中的不平等，以及实施改革的好处或必要性。但总的来说，这些问题不该由法院回答，而应由评论人士、私人实体和半公共实体（包括股票交易所）、以及政府的政治部门来回答。”