Multex.Com Secures Patent For Real-Time SEC Compliance Technologies; Research Providers and Individual Investors are Automatically Protected
Business Wire - October 19, 1999 08:41
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 1999--Multex.com (Nasdaq:MLTX) the world's largest interactive financial community announced today that it has been awarded United States Patent Number 5,940,843 related to a technology it has developed as a compliance solution to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's anti-solicitation rules.
Multex.com's proprietary technology enables suppression of search results for research about companies that meet the SEC's criteria for Anti-Solicitation Status on Multex Investor (www.multexinvestor.com) and select MultexEXPRESS(SM) sites. Under the SEC's anti-solicitation regulations, it is unlawful for any investment bank or brokerage firm to offer advice or opinions to its retail or individual investors about any companies with which it has active financing or advisory relationships which involve material non-public data. The new technology allows real-time suppression of these restricted research headlines.
Multex.com receives research documents from contributing brokerage firms and investment banks for its database of over 1.5 million research reports. When a research contributor identifies the "restriction" and/or "review" status of a company it follows, the Multex.com server automatically and instantaneously blocks all reports by that firm from showing up in searches by retail investors. The capability extends throughout Multex.com's comprehensive search functionality to include searches by company, ticker, industry and sector, thereby protecting research providers and individual investors alike from inadvertent access to restricted information.
The technology has useful applications for contributors to take advantage of beyond compliance with the SEC's anti-solicitation guidelines. An institutional research contributor is required by the SEC to classify a company as "restricted" when the contributor has a current banking or financial interest in that company. A contributor is now able to classify their research on certain companies as "under review" if the contributor believes its opinion about the company may change based on a news event or other unpredicted factors, or if coverage has been temporarily suspended. A contributor may also classify their research on a company as "under extended review" if the contributor is no longer intends to conduct research on that company.
"Our innovative technology revolutionizes the compliance function to ensure adherence to SEC anti-solicitation rules," said Isaak Karaev, Chief Executive Officer of Multex.com. "This is the fourth patent we've received for technological breakthroughs by Multex.com, confirming our leadership position as an innovator in investment research distribution." |
