Senate Investigating Thomson Reuters, University of Michigan

A few days after New York State Attorney General ordered it to stop a practice he said "undermines fair play in the markets," the US Senate is opening an inquiry into Thomson Reuters.

The company, which maintains a large campus in Eagan, partnered with the University of Michigan to offer certain paying customers two seconds' early access to bi-monthly consumer confidence reports before they were released to other clients and to the general public. Because many brokers now use computer programs to handle stock trades, the small window likely allowed clients to reap large profits before the rest of the market had time to react.

According to Market Watch, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley (R-IA), sent a letter to the university asking it to explain the practice.

“My concern is that the [university’s] decision to allow preferential access” to the report “may not be in the public interest,” Grassley wrote.

Read the rest in Market Watch.

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