The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation of Trading Technologies (TT) regarding possible anti-competitive behavior and antitrust issues, FO Week has learned.
Two independent industry sources said that they had met with officials from the Justice Department in recent weeks to discuss TT's business practices. The scope of the inquiry was not known, but one source said TT's open letter to the futures industry (see FO Week Vol 9 No 50) last December had been part of the focus of the inquiry.
In the letter, TT attempted to explain its plan of extracting 2.5 cents per contract from the top four futures exchanges in return for dropping any patent infringement litigation against traders, customers, FCMs, ISVs or exchanges.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department told FO Week that there was no official report or public announcement from the government regarding an investigation of TT. As a matter...