81 FR 22675 - Options Price Reporting Authority; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Amendment to the Plan for Reporting of Consolidated Options Last Sale Reports and Quotation Information To Amend the Redistribution Fee Set Forth in OPRA's Fee Schedule

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 74 (April 18, 2016)

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 74 (Monday, April 18, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 22675-22676]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-08817]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-77586; File No. SR-OPRA-2015-03]


Options Price Reporting Authority; Notice of Filing and Immediate 
Effectiveness of Proposed Amendment to the Plan for Reporting of 
Consolidated Options Last Sale Reports and Quotation Information To 
Amend the Redistribution Fee Set Forth in OPRA's Fee Schedule

April 12, 2016.
    Pursuant to Section 11A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(``Act'') \1\ and Rule 608 thereunder,\2\ notice is hereby given that 
on September 22, 2015, the Options Price Reporting Authority (``OPRA'') 
submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (``Commission'') an 
amendment to the Plan for Reporting of Consolidated Options Last Sale 
Reports and Quotation Information (``OPRA Plan'').\3\ Effective January 
1, 2016, the OPRA Plan amendment revised the description of OPRA's 
reduced rate Redistribution Fee. The Commission is publishing this 
notice to provide interested persons an opportunity to submit written 
comments on the OPRA Plan amendment.
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    \1\ 15 U.S.C. 78k-1.
    \2\ 17 CFR 242.608.
    \3\ The OPRA Plan is a national market system plan approved by 
the Commission pursuant to Section 11A of the Act and Rule 608 
thereunder (formerly Rule 11Aa3-2). See Securities Exchange Act 
Release No. 17638 (March 18, 1981), 22 S.E.C. Docket 484 (March 31, 
1981). The full text of the OPRA Plan is available at http://www.opradata.com. The OPRA Plan provides for the collection and 
dissemination of last sale and quotation information on options that 
are traded on the participant exchanges. The fourteen participants 
to the OPRA Plan are BATS Exchange, Inc., BOX Options Exchange, LLC, 
Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated, C2 Options Exchange, 
Incorporated, EDGX Exchange, Inc., International Securities 
Exchange, LLC, ISE Gemini, LLC, ISE Mercury, LLC, Miami 
International Securities Exchange, LLC, NASDAQ OMX BX, Inc., NASDAQ 
OMX PHLX LLC, The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC, NYSE MKT LLC, and NYSE 
Arca, Inc.
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I. Description and Purpose of the Plan Amendment

    The purpose of the amendment is to amend the OPRA Fee Schedule to 
revise the description of one of OPRA's Redistribution Fees. 
Specifically, the purpose of the OPRA Plan amendment is to make clear 
that OPRA's ``reduced rate'' Redistribution Fee of $650/month is 
available only to Vendor Services that are intended for Subscribers 
that want to query specific OPRA data, and that this fee is not 
available for any Vendor Service that includes a data streaming 
capability. In effect, the OPRA Plan amendment returns the 
applicability of this fee to the scope that it had when it was first 
implemented in 1999.
    An OPRA Redistribution Fee is payable by every OPRA ``Vendor.'' An 
OPRA ``Vendor'' is a recipient of OPRA data that redistributes the data 
``externally''--that is, to persons outside the data recipient itself. 
OPRA has had a two-tier Redistribution Fee for many years: the basic 
OPRA Redistribution Fee has been $1,500/month for many years, and a 
reduced rate of $650/month has been available for many years.\4\ OPRA 
has referred to this reduced rate as the ``Internet Service Only'' 
rate.
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    \4\ OPRA first introduced a reduced rate of $600 ``payable by 
those redistributors who utilize the Internet as their exclusive 
means of redistribution'' in 1998. See Securities Exchange Act 
Release No. 40791 (December 15, 1998), 63 FR 70815 (December 22, 
1998) (SR-OPRA-98-03). OPRA subsequently increased the reduced rate 
to $650 in 2002. See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 45315 
(January 18, 2002), 67 FR 4477 (January 30, 2002) (SR-OPRA-2001-05).
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    The OPRA Plan amendment changed the description of the reduced rate 
of $650/month to specify that the reduced rate is for ``Query service 
only,'' rather than ``Internet service only,'' and revised the footnote 
that accompanies the reduced rate to state that: ``A Vendor's Service 
qualifies for the `Query service only' rate if the Vendor's Service 
provides access to OPRA Data only on a `query' basis without any auto-
refreshing capability and does not redistribute OPRA Data via dedicated 
lines or to the systems of one or more other Vendors (sometimes 
referred to as `downstream Vendors') or to one or more Hosted 
Solutions.'' \5\
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    \5\ OPRA added the footnote that accompanies the reduced rate in 
File No. SR-OPRA-2011-02. See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 
64819 (July 6, 2011), 76 FR 40967 (July 12, 2011). OPRA's experience 
has been that some Vendors have continued to assume, notwithstanding 
the footnote, that they qualify for the reduced rate even though 
they provide high message capacity data streaming services.
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    When OPRA implemented the ``Internet service only'' Redistribution 
Fee, an ``Internet service only'' was a service that was not suitable 
for high-speed/high-reliability data transmission and high traffic 
volumes, and was a service appropriate for retail customers interested 
in querying specific options quotations and last sale prices.
    OPRA estimates that the revised definition of the reduced rate 
Redistribution Fee is likely to affect between 35 and 45 of its 
Vendors, out of a total population of roughly 200 Vendors. Many of the 
remaining 155 to 165 OPRA Vendors also utilize the Internet to 
disseminate their data services, and pay the regular OPRA 
Redistribution Fee. Accordingly OPRA believes that the OPRA Plan 
amendment will cause all Vendors that are similarly situated in terms 
of the means of dissemination of their data services to be subject to 
the same OPRA Redistribution Fee.
    For an OPRA Vendor that is required to pay the regular 
Redistribution Fee instead of the reduced rate as a result of the 
change, the change will result in an increase of $850/month or $10,200/
year in its OPRA Redistribution Fees. If the maximum estimated number 
of 45 Vendors are affected by the change and none cease to be OPRA 
Vendors, OPRA's annualized revenues would increase by $459,000 as a 
result of the change, representing approximately a 0.67% increase in 
OPRA's annualized revenues; any lesser number of Vendors being affected 
by the change would result in a smaller increase in OPRA's revenues as 
a result of the change.
    The text of the OPRA Plan amendment is available at OPRA, the 
Commission's Public Reference Room, on OPRA's Web site at http://opradata.com, and on the Commission's Web site at www.sec.gov.

II. Implementation of the OPRA Plan Amendment

    Pursuant to paragraph (b)(3)(i) of Rule 608 of Regulation NMS under 
the Act, OPRA designated this amendment as establishing or changing 
fees or other charges collected on behalf of all of the OPRA 
participants in connection with access to or use of OPRA facilities.

[[Page 22676]]

OPRA put the revised description of reduced rate Redistribution Fee 
into effect as of January 1, 2016.

III. Solicitation of Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and 
arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the OPRA Plan 
amendment is consistent with the Act.\6\ Comments may be submitted by 
any of the following methods:
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    \6\ Pursuant to Rule 608(b)(3)(iii) of Regulation NMS, the 
Commission may summarily abrogate an immediately effective NMS Plan 
amendment within sixty days of its filing and require refiling and 
approval of the amendment if it appears to the Commission that such 
action is necessary or appropriate in the public interest, for the 
protection of investors, or the maintenance of fair and orderly 
markets, to remove impediments to, and perfect the mechanisms of, a 
national market system, or otherwise in furtherance of the purposes 
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. See 17 CFR 
242.608(b)(3)(iii). The abrogation period for the OPRA Plan 
amendment has expired. Interested persons may nevertheless submit 
written comments on the OPRA Plan amendment.
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Electronic Comments

     Use the Commission's Internet comment form (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml); or
     Send an email to [email protected]. Please include 
File No. SR-OPRA-2015-03 on the subject line.

Paper Comments

     Send paper comments in triplicate to Secretary, Securities 
and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549-1090.

All submissions should refer to File Number SR-OPRA-2015-03. This file 
number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To help 
the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, 
please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on 
the Commission's Internet Web site (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all 
written statements with respect to the OPRA Plan amendment that are 
filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to 
the OPRA Plan amendment between the Commission and any person, other 
than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance with the 
provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for Web site viewing and 
printing in the Commission's Public Reference Room, 100 F Street NE., 
Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the hours of 
10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Copies of such filing also will be available 
for inspection and copying at the principal office of OPRA. All 
comments received will be posted without change; the Commission does 
not edit personal identifying information from submissions. You should 
submit only information that you wish to make available publicly. All 
submissions should refer to File Number SR-OPRA-2015-03 and should be 
submitted on or before May 9, 2016.

    By the Commission.
Robert W. Errett,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2016-08817 Filed 4-15-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 8011-01-P