Reuters is threatening to shut off the supply of market data to rival outfit Moneyline Telerate after filing a lawsuit for recovery of an alleged $18 million debt from unpaid bills.
The dispute centres on a curious legacy from Reuters' acquisition of Bridge Information Systems in 2001, which saw the UK-based news and information group take over a ticker plant facility in St Louis that disseminated market data to Moneyline Telerate clients.
In a lawsuit filed in New York late on Tuesday, Reuters alleges that "Moneyline has engaged in one artifice after another in order to avoid paying for the valuable services and licences that it has received". The firm says it will stop providing MoneyLine with data from 19 December.
Moneyline Telerate, the world's fourth-largest provider of financial news and information, says it will fight the suit and has accused Reuters of using its position to "pull the plug" on financial institutions worldwide. Moneyline says it wants an independent audit and a proper breakdown of the invoices from Reuters before it settles the outstanding debt.
The firm is currently in the process of migrating much of its core market data content to a new proprietary ticker plant run on Linux.
Seperately, Reuters has announced an agreement to test secure access between Reuters Messaging and IBM Lotus Instant Messaging product Sametime. This initiative further complements the connectivity work Reuters has already undertaken with America Online's AIM and ICQ services.