Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 90 / Thursday, May 8, 2008 / Notices 26181 

15 17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). 

1The amendment changed a misplaced word in 

a footnote. 

2The amendment changed the implementation 

date of the service and made other technical 

changes. 

3The amendment changed the implementation 

date of the service. 

4 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). 

5Securities Exchange Act Release No. 56552 

(September 27, 2007), 72 FR 56407. 

6Securities Exchange Act Release No. 57513 

(March 17, 2008), 73 FR 15548. 

7Securities Exchange Act Release No. 57647 

(April 10, 2008), 73 FR 20727. 8MSRB Rule G–14, RTRS Procedures (a)(ii). 

9MSRB Rule G–14, RTRS Procedures (a)(ii)(C). 

10 Data vendors or others that wish to receive 

NIIDS Data Elements must register in advance with 

DTC. 

information that you wish to make 

available publicly. All submissions 

should refer to File Number SR–

NYSEArca–2008–44 and should be 

submitted on or before May 29, 2008. 

For the Commission, by the Division of 

Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated 

authority.15

Florence E. Harmon, 

Deputy Secretary. 

[FR Doc. E8–10250 Filed 5–7–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8010–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 34–57768; File No. SR–DTC–

2007–10] 

Self-Regulatory Organizations; The 

Depository Trust Company; Order 

Granting Accelerated Approval of an 

Amended Proposed Rule Change To 

Implement the New Issue Information 

Dissemination Service for Municipal 

Securities 

May 2, 2008. 

I. Introduction 

On August 16, 2007, The Depository 

Trust Company (‘‘DTC’’) filed with the 

Securities and Exchange Commission 

(‘‘Commission’’) and on September 12, 

2007,1 March 3, 2008,2 and April 9, 

2008 3 amended proposed rule change 

SR–DTC–2007–10 pursuant to Section 

19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act 

of 1934 (‘‘Act’’).4 Notice of the proposal 

was published in the Federal Register 

on October 3, 2007,5 March 24, 2008,6

and April 16, 2008.7 The Commission 

received no comment letters. For the 

reasons discussed below, the 

Commission is approving the proposed 

rule change on an accelerated basis. 

II. Description 

The New Issue Identification 

Dissemination Service (‘‘NIIDS’’) is 

designed to improve the process by 

which municipal securities new issue 

information is provided by underwriters 

to information vendors. NIIDS will 

provide for the collection of information 

about new issues from underwriters or 

their representatives in an electronic 

format and for making that data 

available immediately to information 

vendors. NIIDS is designed to enable the 

dissemination of new issue information 

as quickly and efficiently as possible 

after the information is made available 

by underwriters. 

Municipal Securities Rulemaking 

Board (‘‘MSRB’’) Rule G–14 generally 

requires municipal securities dealers to 

report municipal securities transactions 

to the MSRB within 15 minutes of the 

time of the trade.8 Inter-dealer trades 

eligible for comparison by a clearing 

agency are required to be submitted to 

the MSRB through the National 

Securities Clearing Corporation’s 

(‘‘NSCC’’) Real Time Trade Matching 

System (‘‘RTTM’’) within the 15 minute 

time frame in Rule G–14. NSCC requires 

certain securities information in order to 

process and to report transactions 

involving those securities. Therefore, it 

is necessary that dealers trading newly 

issued municipal securities have the 

securities information needed for trade 

submission by the time the trade is 

required to be reported. 

Pursuant to current practice in the 

municipal securities market, each 

information vendor works separately to 

obtain information from offering 

documents and from underwriters. Each 

information vendor’s success in 

obtaining information about newly 

issued municipal securities depends in 

large part upon the voluntary 

cooperation of the underwriters. It is not 

unusual for information vendors to have 

inconsistent information or for some 

information vendors to receive 

information before others. 

Consequently, critical new issue 

information may be missing, inaccurate, 

or both in the automated trade 

processing systems used by dealers to 

report trades in new issues. This can 

result in the late submission of trade 

reports or in trade reports that must be 

canceled and resubmitted or amended 

because they contain inaccurate data. 

To address concerns that dealers often 

lack timely access to electronically 

formatted accurate securities 

information necessary to process and 

report municipal securities transactions 

in real-time, MSRB Rule G–14 provides 

for reporting of trades within threehours of the time of trade for a dealer 

trading in ‘‘when, as, and if issued’’

municipal securities if the dealer is not 

a syndicate manager or syndicate 

member for the issue, has not traded the 

issue in the previous year, and does not 

have the CUSIP information or 

indicative data for that issue in their 

securities master file (‘‘Reporting 

Exemption’’).9 The Reporting 

Exemption will expire in 2008. In order 

to prepare for the Reporting 

Exemption’s expiration, the Securities 

Industry and Financial Markets 

Association asked DTC to include a 

centralized automated mechanism for 

the real-time collection and 

dissemination of the required 

information as part of the planned 

reengineering of DTC’s underwriting 

system. In response to this request, DTC 

built NIIDS to help make the collection 

and dissemination of municipal 

securities new issue information more 

efficient for the industry. 

NIIDS Process 

To commence the process, the 

Dissemination Agent for a new issue 

municipal security must input the key 

data elements required for the reporting, 

comparison, confirmation, and 

settlement of trades in municipal 

securities (‘‘NIIDS Data Elements’’) into 

NIIDS. The inputting will constitute a 

request that DTC make the information 

available to the industry through NIIDS. 

DTC will not confirm the accuracy of 

the NIIDS Data Elements and will act 

only as a conduit to pass along such 

information to data vendors.10 DTC 

anticipates the data vendors will then 

disseminate the information to the 

industry thereby enabling dealers to 

make timely and accurate reporting of 

their municipal trades. DTC will record 

the name of the Dissemination Agent 

that inputs the NIIDS Data Elements and 

the time such information is submitted. 

DTC will begin disseminating the data 

when it has received authorization from 

the Dissemination Agent through NIIDS. 

In addition, NIIDS will contain the 

contact information for the 

Dissemination Agent that populated the 

NIIDS Data Elements for each issue to 

enable users of the data to contact them 

with questions or comments. 

DTC is providing NIIDS to the 

industry in order to facilitate the 

collection and dissemination of 

municipal securities new issue 

information. As DTC is only a conduit 

of the information and does not confirm 

the validity of any of the NIIDS Data 

Elements, use of NIIDS by any party will 

constitute an agreement that DTC shall 

not be liable for any loss or damages in 

relation to its collection and 

dissemination of NIIDS Data Elements. 

Each NIIDS user will agree to indemnify 

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26182 Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 90 / Thursday, May 8, 2008 / Notices 

11The MSRB received comment on its proposed 

rules that would require underwriters of municipal 

securities to participate in NIIDS. See Comments on 

MSRB Notice 2007–10 (March 5, 2007) at http:// 

www.msrb.org/msrb1/rules/RFC/2007/2007–10/ 

2007–10CommentLetters.asp. 

12Securities Exchange Act Release No. 57131 

(January 11, 2008), 73 FR 3295 (January 17, 2008) 

[SR–MSRB–2007–08]. 

13 15 U.S.C. 78s(b). 

14 15 U.S.C. 78q–1(b)(3)(F). 

15 In approving the proposed rule change, the 

Commission considered the proposal’s impact on 

efficiency, competition, and capital formation. 15 

U.S.C. 78c(f). 

16 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(2). 

17 17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). 

1 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). 

2 17 CFR 240.19b–4. 

and hold harmless DTC and its affiliates 

from and against any and all losses, 

damages, liabilities, costs, judgments, 

charges, and expenses arising out of or 

relating to the use of NIIDS. 

Optional Use of NIIDS 

The MSRB would like dealers to be 

able to use NIIDS before requiring them 

to so by rule.11 The MSRB has filed with 

the Commission a proposed rule change 

that ultimately would require 

underwriters to use NIIDS in 2008.12

DTC intends to provide the municipal 

securities industry the opportunity to 

start using NIIDS on May 5, 2008. 

Mandated use of NIIDS for municipal 

securities is expected to commence 

September 2, 2008. DTC believes that 

the municipal securities industry will 

use NIIDS during the period NIIDS is 

optional (‘‘Optional Period’’) in order to 

become accustomed to it. This may 

result in Dissemination Agents 

inputting incomplete or inaccurate 

NIIDS Data Elements while getting 

acquainted with NIIDS. Therefore, no 

one should rely on the accuracy of the 

NIIDS Data Elements during the 

Optional Period but rather should 

continue to also use existing authorized 

sources of such information. 

DTC will not charge a service fee to 

underwriters that input or receive 

information through NIIDS. 

Additionally, DTC will not charge a 

service fee to information vendors that 

receive information through NIIDS for 

further dissemination. DTC will charge 

a connectivity fee to underwriters, 

service providers, and information 

vendors that use NIIDS. 

III. Discussion 

Section 19(b) of the Act directs the 

Commission to approve a proposed rule 

change of a self-regulatory organization 

if it finds that such proposed rule 

change is consistent with the 

requirements of the Act and the rules 

and regulations thereunder applicable to 

such organization.13 Section 

17A(b)(3)(F) of the Act requires that the 

rules of a clearing agency be designed to 

promote the prompt and accurate 

clearance and settlement of securities 

transactions.14 The Commission finds 

that DTC’s rule change implementing 

NIIDS is consistent with this 

requirement because by automating, 

standardizing, and centralizing the 

collection and dissemination of new 

issue information for municipal 

securities NIIDS should make the 

reporting and clearance and settlement 

of trades in municipal securities more 

timely and accurate. As a result, DTC’s 

proposed rule change should promote 

the prompt and accurate clearance and 

settlement of securities transactions.15

The Commission believes there is 

good cause for approving the proposed 

rule change prior to the thirtieth day 

after the date of publication of notice of 

filing because by so approving the 

proposed rule change DTC will be able 

to provide a longer Optional Period for 

users to use and become accustom to 

NIIDS before its use is mandated and 

will allow DTC to implement NIIDS 

according to its system implementation 

schedule. 

IV. Conclusion 

On the basis of the foregoing, the 

Commission finds that the proposed 

rule change is consistent with the 

requirements of the Act and in 

particular Section 17A of the Act and 

the rules and regulations thereunder. 

It is therefore ordered, pursuant to 

Section 19(b)(2) of the Act,16 that the 

proposed rule change (File No. SR–

DTC–2007–10) be and hereby is 

approved on an accelerated basis. 

For the Commission by the Division of 

Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated 

authority.17

Florence E. Harmon, 

Deputy Secretary. 

[FR Doc. E8–10213 Filed 5–7–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8010–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 34–57761; File No. SR–

NASDAQ–2008–035] 

Self-Regulatory Organizations; The 

NASDAQ Stock Market LLC; Notice of 

Filing of Proposed Rule Change to 

Amend the By-Laws of The NASDAQ 

OMX Group, Inc. in Connection With 

Acquisitions of Boston Stock 

Exchange, Incorporated and 

Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Inc. 

May 1, 2008. 

Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934 

(‘‘Act’’),1 and Rule 19b–4 thereunder,2

notice is hereby given that on April 21, 

2008, The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC 

(‘‘Exchange’’) filed with the Securities 

and Exchange Commission 

(‘‘Commission’’) the proposed rule 

change as described in Items I, II, and 

III below, which Items have been 

prepared substantially by Nasdaq. The 

Commission is publishing this notice to 

solicit comments on the proposed rule 

change from interested persons. 

I. Self-Regulatory Organization’s 

Statement of the Terms of the Substance 

of the Proposed Rule Change 

The Exchange proposes changes to the 

by-laws of its parent corporation, The 

NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (‘‘NASDAQ 

OMX’’). The proposed changes will be 

implemented upon approval by the 

Commission. The text of the proposed 

rule change is available at the 

Exchange’s Web site at http:// 

nasdaq.complinet.com, the Exchange’s 

principal office, and the Commission’s 

Public Reference Room. 

II. Self-Regulatory Organization’s 

Statement of the Purpose of, and 

Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule 

Change 

In its filing with the Commission, the 

Exchange included statements 

concerning the purpose of and basis for 

the proposed rule change and discussed 

any comments it received on the 

proposed rule change. The text of these 

statements may be examined at the 

places specified in Item IV below. The 

Exchange has prepared summaries, set 

forth in Sections A, B, and C below, of 

the most significant aspects of such 

statements. 

A. Self-Regulatory Organization’s 

Statement of the Purpose of, and 

Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule 

Change 

1. Purpose 

On October 2, 2007, The Nasdaq 

Stock Market, Inc. announced that it 

had entered into an agreement with 

Boston Stock Exchange, Incorporated 

(‘‘BSE’’) pursuant to which NASDAQ 

OMX will acquire all of the outstanding 

membership interests in BSE, and BSE 

will be merged with and into Yellow 

Merger Corporation, a Delaware 

corporation and wholly owned 

subsidiary of NASDAQ OMX, with BSE 

surviving the merger (the ‘‘BSE 

Merger’’). As a result of the BSE Merger, 

BSE will become a Delaware stock 

corporation, with 100% of its 

outstanding stock owned by NASDAQ 

mstockstill on PROD1PC66 with NOTICES