On February 28, 2025, House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR), Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) sent a letter (the “Letter”) to Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) Acting Chair Mark Uyeda requesting that the Commission launch a comprehensive review of all aspects of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT”), the Commission-mandated reporting system that collects data regarding trading in the U.S. equities and options markets.
Specifically, the Letter calls on the Commission to take steps to pause CAT’s most controversial elements – namely, (i) the collection of personally identifiable information (“PII”) of investors and (ii) the problematic funding structure (which a majority of the current Commission voted against). The Letter also calls on the Commission to pause and reconsider its position with respect to ongoing litigation relating to CAT.
The Letter follows the Commission’s recent order exempting the reporting of certain PII – names, addresses, and years of birth – to CAT on February 10, 2025. In this regard, the Letter states that “[t]he prohibition on collecting investor PII must be formally codified (rather than via rescindable exemptive relief) and already-collected PII must be expunged.” In addition, the Letter states that “[c]ybersecurity measures for CAT’s remaining data must be enhanced” and its “bloated out-of-control budget must be addressed.”