06.23.21

FINRA Retiring OATS to Make Way for CAT

by: Melanie Waddell

Beginning on Sept. 1, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) will remove the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) rules because members have switched to the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) for trade reporting. The announcement comes after FINRA said in a regulatory notice that the CAT met the standards approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Susan Schroeder, vice chair of the Securities and Financial Services Department at WilmerHale, said, "Now that FINRA will rely on CAT instead of OATS for its trade surveillance, if FINRA takes the same approach to CAT reporting, the industry could see a number of FINRA enforcement actions for technical violations of the reporting rules, even where firms’ supervisory systems are reasonably designed and firms are using good faith efforts to comply with their new and complex obligations.”

Read the full article on Think Advisor.