Regulating the Sale of Stock Exchange Market Data to High-Frequency Traders

In 2014, author Michael Lewis published a bestselling book titled Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, in which he argued that “high frequency traders” have been able to gain an unfair advantage in the stock market, in part because stock exchanges and “dark pools”—alternative venues for trading stocks—have enabled those traders to obtain and trade on market data faster than other investors. A litany of lawsuits followed in short succession, asserting various theories of liability.