Thill Securities Corporation, Etc. v. The New York Stock Exchange

433 F.2d 264
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 18, 1970
Docket18036
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 433 F.2d 264 (Thill Securities Corporation, Etc. v. The New York Stock Exchange) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thill Securities Corporation, Etc. v. The New York Stock Exchange, 433 F.2d 264 (7th Cir. 1970).

Opinions

CAMPBELL, District Judge.

The basic question presented here is whether stock-brokers who are members of the New York Stock Exchange should continue to enjoy their self-acquired freedom from competition by stockbrokers who are not members. Using the vehicle of Stock Exchange rules, members seem effectively to have negated the congressionally mandated principle of competition as it would otherwise apply to them.

The New York Stock Exchange (“Exchange”) is the largest organized securities market in the United States. Its dominance of the securities industry is a well known and commonly accepted commercial and historical fact. It transacts well over 70 per-cent of the dollar value of all stock transactions on exchanges in the United States. See, New [266]*266York Stock Exchange, 1970 Fact Book. Its policies and practices have an ever increasing effect on our economy.

By the Exchange’s Constitution, its membership is limited to 1366 members. In 1969 a membership sold for the record price of $515,000. Id. at 55.

The Exchange is governed by a 33 man Board, consisting of 29 members elected by the membership and a president and 3 governors who are to represent the public view and who are elected by the Board. The economic power of the Exchange and its members extends well beyond the operations of the Exchange itself. As the author of a leading article explains:

“The influence wielded by these Big Board members, along with their ‘allied’ brethren, reaches way beyond the NYSE: thus they comprise 23 of the 32 Governors of the American Exchange; 16 of 25 of the Midwest Exchange’s Governors; 8 out of 11 for the Pacific Exchange; and 16.of the 22-man Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers, a ‘self-regulatory institution for the over-the-counter markets’ to which, since it bars any of its members ‘from dealing with a non-member broker or dealer except at the prices * * * accorded to members of the public’, for ‘all practical purposes the vast majority of brokers or dealers’ must belong ‘in order to engage profitably in most underwritings and over-the-counter business’. Quite understandably, then, it is on the operations of the NYSE and its members that antitrust interest has so far principally focused.” Bicks, Antitrust And The New York Stock Exchange, 21 Bus.Lawy. 129, 134 (1965).

In many respects the Exchange has been delegated governmental authority. Its counsel describes it as a “unique self regulator.” Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. § 78a et seq.) it may adopt its own constitution and rules, and discipline violations thereof. The Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has the power, however, to order changes in Exchange rules respecting a number of subjects, set forth in section 19(b) of the Act.1 15 U.S.C. § 78s (b). Except for the limited review authority of the SEC, the Exchange’s economic power in the securities field appears complete and absolute.

Plaintiff Thill Securities Corporation, (“Thill”) is a licensed securities dealer-broker, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a member in good standing of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., but is not a member of the New York Stock Exchange. It brings this action on its own behalf and on behalf of all other securities dealers and brokers similarly situated, being those who are not members of the New. York Stock Exchange and who are denied access to the auction market and trading facilities of the Exchange except through one of its members. In its complaint Thill charges the Exchange with substantial anti-competitive conduct in violation of the antitrust laws of the United States. Sherman Antitrust Act, § 1 and § 2, 15 U.S.C. § 1 and § 2; and Clayton Act, § 4, 15 U.S. C. § 15. Specifically, Thill charges that the Exchange has engaged in an unlawful and unreasonable combination and conspiracy in restraint of interstate trade and commerce and has unlawfully and unreasonably monopolized the securities market in the United States by among other things adopting, subscribing and adhering to a rule which prohibits any member of the Exchange from sharing any commission earned from the purchase or sale of securities with a non-member, even though the non[267]*267member may have furnished the order ;2 and by discriminately discouraging customers and prospective customers of Thill and other non-members from doing business with non-members.

Thill alleges that as a proximate result of the unlawful and monopolistic rules and practices of the Exchange, it and other non-members of the Exchange are totally deprived of commissions or other fair compensation on transactions which they have initiated and serviced. It further alleges that the intended, necessary and actual effect of this unlawful conduct is to restrain trade by preventing any competition by and between members of the Exchange and non-member securities dealers and brokers. Thill alleges to have suffered damages in the amount of seven million dollars, for which it seeks treble damages ($21,000,T 000) under the antitrust laws. It also seeks a declaratory judgment that the Exchange’s prohibition against sharing of commissions constitutes a violation of the antitrust laws; and an injunction prohibiting the Exchange from enforcing the prohibition. Subsequent to the filing of this action, Thill Securities Corporation went out of business.

The defendant Exchange does not contest the anti-competitive effects of its rule prohibiting the sharing of commissions — sometimes referred to as the anti-rebate rule. At oral argument its counsel admitted, as is obvious, that the conduct complained of would constitute a violation of the antitrust laws, were those statutes applicable to the activities of the Exchange in this case. Its position is that the Sherman Act does not apply to the rule of the Exchange prohibiting the sharing of commissions by members with non-members. It contends that this broad immunity is enjoyed by virtue of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S..C. § 78a et seq.) which authorizes registered national securities exchanges to adopt rules in respect to the “fixing of reasonable rates of commission” subject to review and revision by the Securities Exchange Commission under section 19(b) of the Act. 15 U.S.C. § 78s(b). It also contends that the SEC has and is exercising exclusive review jurisdiction over such rules of the Exchange, and that its conduct is thus immune from antitrust liability. This immunity, in its view, extends beyond the “fixing of reasonable rates of commission” and includes rules relating to the “sharing” of commissions, because the prohibition against sharing of commissions with nonmember broker dealers is an integral part of the “fixing of reasonable rates”.

The district court essentially agreed with the position taken by the Exchange. It first found that the conduct complained of, i. e.

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Bluebook (online)
433 F.2d 264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thill-securities-corporation-etc-v-the-new-york-stock-exchange-ca7-1970.