trueEX and Markit settle legal dispute

trueEX initially sought legal action taken following Markit’s decision to prohibit access to its trade processing service, MarkitSERV.

US interest rate swaps trading venue trueEX has settled a legal dispute with Markit after it sought legal action against the firm for anti-competitive reasons earlier this year.

trueEX initially filed a complaint after Markit terminated its access to trade processing service, MarkitSERV.

In an open letter written to clients in May this year, CEO at trueEX, Sunil Hirani, described Markit’s move as “unilateral and only being to trueEX.”

He added trueEX believed Markit was looking to interact with the exchange the same way as it does with voice broker IDBs, so it would be able to exclusively perform matching, clearing and other processes of transactions.

“This change requires trueEX to insert Markit in the 'middle' of all of our activities in order to process, clear and report transactions, thereby creating additional workflow steps, potentially slower response times, additional software and connectivity changes and higher costs,” he said at the time.

Both firms have now resolved the issue and MarkitSERV will continue to provide the same service it currently provides to similar venues to process trades.

Furthermore, trueEX will now offer the choice of processing trades to clearing through trueEX or MarkitSERV.

trueEX recently appointed a new chief technology officer (CTO), amid plans to expand into the broader rates market.

Kevin Lupowitz has been appointed CTO and tasked with overseeing the expansion of trueEX’s platform in terms of technical specifications, functionality and performance.

The interest rate swap execution platform has seen its notional trading activity grow a massive 542% year-to-date compared to the year prior. Similarly, its share of the dealer-to-client swaps market now stands at more than 30%, up from 9% just a year ago.

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