Upon Written Request, Copies Available From: Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of FOIA Services, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549-2736.

Notice is hereby given that pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (“PRA”) (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) a request for approval of extension of the previously approved collection of information provided for in connection in connection with a National Market System (NMS) Plan filed with the Commission under Rule 613 (17 CFR 242.613), under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.).

Rule 613 of Regulation NMS (17 CFR part 242) required national securities exchanges and national securities associations (“Participants”) to jointly submit to the Commission a national market system (“NMS”) plan to govern the creation, implementation, and maintenance of a consolidated audit trail (“CAT”) and Central Repository for the collection of information for NMS securities. On February 27, 2015, the Participants submitted the CAT NMS Plan to the Commission.^[1] On April 27, 2016, the Commission published a notice soliciting comments from the public (“CAT NMS Plan Notice”).^[2] On November 15, 2016, the Commission approved the CAT NMS Plan (“CAT NMS Plan Order”), including the information collections proposed in the CAT NMS Plan Notice, and certain additional information collections.^[3]

Since July 2020, the date of the last PRA renewal, the Commission believes one additional information collection was completed: a one-time independent audit of the fees, costs, and expenses incurred by the Participants on behalf of CAT NMS, LLC prior to the Effective Date ^[4] of the Plan; ^[5] In addition. certain information collection requirements have completed at least the implementation stage, although certain ongoing costs remain, including: (1) development of a Central Repository tasked with the receipt, consolidation, and retention of reported order and execution information submitted by Participants and their members; ^[6] (2) the requirement that each Participant, and any member of such Participant, record and electronically report to the Central Repository details for each order and Reportable Event documenting the life of an order through the process of original receipt or origination, routing, modification, cancellation, and execution (in whole or in part) for each NMS security; ^[7] (3) the requirement that the CAT NMS Plan require the Central Repository to collect and retain on a current and continuous basis NBBO information for each NMS security, transaction reports reported pursuant to an effective transaction reporting plan, and Last Sale Reports reported pursuant to the Options Price Reporting Authority Plan; ^[8] (4) the requirement that the CAT NMS Plan must require that every national securities exchange and national securities association develop and implement a surveillance system, or enhance existing surveillance systems, reasonably designed to make use of the consolidated information contained in the consolidated audit trail; ^[9] (5) an annual requirement that that the CAT LLC financials be (i) in compliance with GAAP, (ii) be audited by an independent public accounting firm, and (iii) be made publicly available; ^[10] and (6) a requirement that each Participant conduct background checks for its employees and contractors that will use the CAT System.^[11]

This Notice addresses both the ongoing information collection requirements noted above and the remaining information collection requirements noticed in the CAT NMS Plan Notice and certain additional information collections of the CAT NMS Plan Order, which are: (1) a one-time report from the Participants discussing the feasibility and advisability of allowing Industry Members to bulk download the Raw Data that it has submitted to the Central Repository; ^[12] (2) a one-time assessment of the nature and extent of errors in the Customer information submitted to the Central Repository and whether the correction of certain data fields over others should be prioritized from the Participants; ^[13] (3) a one-time report on the impact of tiered fees on market liquidity, including an analysis of the impact of the tiered-fee structure on Industry Members provision of liquidity from the Participants; ^[14] and (4) an assessment of the projected impact of any Material Systems Change on the Maximum Error Rate, prior to the implementation of such Material Systems Change from the Participants; ^[15]

The Commission believes that the CAT NMS Plan, once fully implemented, will improve the quality of the data available to regulators in four areas that affect the ultimate effectiveness of core regulatory efforts—completeness, accuracy, accessibility and timeliness.^[16] The improvements in these data qualities would substantially improve regulators' ability to perform analysis and reconstruction of market events, and market analysis and research to inform policy decisions, as well as perform regulatory activities, in particular market surveillance, examinations, investigations, and other enforcement functions.

The Commission estimates that 1375 respondents ^[17] will require an aggregate total of approximately 4,931,332 hours per year to comply with the collection of information. The Commission further estimates that the aggregate cost to comply with the collection of information will be approximately $328,662,911 per year.

An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information under the PRA unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The public may view background documentation for this information collection at the following website: www.reginfo.gov. Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent by August 24, 2023 to (i) www.reginfo.gov/​public/​do/​PRAMain and (ii) David Bottom, Director/Chief Information Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission, c/o John Pezzullo, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549, or by sending an email to: PRA_Mailbox@sec.gov.