SEC v. NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC and NASDAQ Execution Services, LLC (2013)

Settled

Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In 2013 the Securities and Exchange Commission settled an administrative order with the Nasdaq Stock Market and Nasdaq Execution Services, finding rule breaches in the handling of the May 18, 2012 Facebook offering and in Nasdaq's order-checking systems. The order imposes a $10 million penalty.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	34-69655
Date filed	2013-05-29
Date resolved	2013-05-29
Status	settled
Asset class	equities
Venue	Nasdaq
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	The NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC (entity) ; NASDAQ Execution Services, LLC (entity)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.15(c) ; Regulation SHO (Rules 203 and 204) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $10m
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $10m
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on May 29, 2013 as release 34-69655. The respondents named are The NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC and NASDAQ Execution Services, LLC (0 individuals, 2 entities).

The order finds that Nasdaq broke its own rules and the Exchange Act in the Facebook offering cross, and that its systems that apply the trade-through and short-sale price-test checks stopped receiving market data for part of October 10, 2011. The roughly $10.8 million Nasdaq made in its error account on Facebook shares is a finding of the order, not a penalty.

This library does not tag the matter to a manipulation technique. The order concerns an exchange's offering and systems failures, including a short-sale price test (Regulation SHO Rule 201), not selling short without a borrow or a locate.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil penalty of $10,000,000. Penalty and disgorgement are distinct: disgorgement returns the gain, while the penalty is punitive. We store them separately so that aggregate figures across the library are not double-counted.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Timeline

2013-05-29 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.