Markit Antitrust Probe

Markit is so overeager when applying their license (much worse than, say, Bloomberg), they had the gall to try and prevent me from using their data once, even though I was an employee of one of the owners, my division was a customer, and the data was available on their website with no login. So, we got a bunch of lawyers involved, argued about it for two weeks, likely cost an analysts salary in legal bills, and they ended up agreeing that we could use it - since it was very clearly stated in the contract. What idiots... or does it make them geniuses?

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Markit Group Ltd., the data provider majority-owned by Wall Street’s largest banks, is under Justice Department scrutiny for potential anticompetitive practices ranging from requiring customers to buy bundled services to restricting which trades can be cleared in the $26 trillion credit-default swap market.

Markit told a swaps clearinghouse customer to purchase a pricing service as a condition for granting use of its benchmark indexes, said a person with knowledge of the transactions. Markit permitted use of its indexes by another clearinghouse only if every swap guaranteed by the company included a dealer, such as one of its owners, said other people familiar with those negotiations.