January 23, 2007
Comments on File No. SR-NASDAQ-2006-040
I can only reiterate my earlier remarks in opposition to the anti-competitive misuse by NASDAQ of its position as the primary market for publicly-held small and mid-cap companies to compel issuers to use unrelated financial reporting services from companies which it happens to own. Whether they are "bundled" or called "free", the result is the same: a 17 percent increase in our listing fee which would not be necessary if those services were not provided. Since those services are provided in limited quantities, issuers must either maintain two servicers so as to use up the "free" services prior switching to a company not owned by NASDAQ which results in operational inefficiency, or pay as yet unspecified additional sum to the NASDAQ-owned companies for service that the issuer actually requires as opposed to those included in the bundle.
NASDAQ's revised proposal is at minimum unethical. It falls on the SEC through its regulation to be certain that it is also illegal.