On November 29, 2018, The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) a proposed rule change, pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”) ^[1] and Rule 19b-4 thereunder,^[2] to allow DTC to share status information with matching utilities (SR-DTC-2018-010).

The proposed rule change was published for comment in the Federal Register on December 12, 2018.^[3] In response, the Commission received one comment letter on the proposed rule change.^[4] On December 26, 2018, the Commission extended the time period within which to approve the proposed rule change, disapprove the proposed rule change, or institute proceedings to ( printed page 27173) determine whether to approve or disapprove the proposed rule change to March 12, 2019.^[5] On March 11, 2019, the Commission issued an order instituting proceedings under Section 19(b)(2)(B) of the Act ^[6] to determine whether to approve or disapprove the proposed rule change (“OIP”).^[7] The Commission received two comments on the proposal in response to the OIP.^[8]

Section 19(b)(2)(B)(ii) of the Act ^[9] provides that, after initiating proceedings, the Commission shall issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change not later than 180 days after the date of publication of notice of filing of the proposed rule change. The Commission may extend the period for issuing an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change, however, by not more than 60 days if the Commission determines that a longer period is appropriate and publishes the reasons for such determination. The proposed rule change was published for notice and comment in the Federal Register on December 12, 2018. The 180th day after publication of the Notice is June 10, 2019, and August 9, 2019 is an additional 60 days from that date.

The Commission finds it appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the comment letters. Accordingly, the Commission, pursuant to Section 19(b)(2) of the Act,^[10] designates August 9, 2019, as the date by which the Commission shall either approve or disapprove the proposed rule change (SR-DTC-2018-010).