The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. (Nymex) announced it has been informed that Judge John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York Tuesday dismissed four of the five lawsuit counterclaims made against Nymex by the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE).

The dismissed claims included allegations that Nymex did the following:

The claim that was not dismissed regarded an accusation of false advertising, including assertions that the ICE platform “facilitates or encourages illegal activity,” including wash or roundtrip trading which enable companies to create the appearance of large trading volumes. The court ruled that the determination of that claim must await discovery.

The counterclaims by ICE were filed on Jan. 6 in response to a copyright infringement suit filed by Nymex on Nov. 20, 2002 regarding the use by ICE of the Exchange’s settlement prices.

ICE charged Nymex with abuse of monopoly power for claiming copyright protection over its settlement prices and for its recent efforts to launch an OTC trading platform similar to the one ICE currently operates (see Daily GPI, Jan. 7).

The ICE countersuit said that Nymex’s efforts to prevent ICE from using Nymex settlement prices by claiming that the prices are copyrightable works of “authorship” represented an illegal restraint of trade and were intended solely to restrict competition.

In its original lawsuit to prevent the use of its settlement prices by ICE, Nymex said the settlement prices incorporate the “originality” and “creativity” of Nymex’s settlement committees and therefore demand copyright protection (see Daily GPI, Nov. 21). But that contradicts the repeated claims by Nymex officials that the settlement prices are public benchmarks used worldwide in contracts and other business exchanges, ICE said.

“The court supported our position that these claims were without merit and we are confident that it will ultimately do the same on the final claim.” said Nymex President J. Robert Collins, Jr.

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