Chicago screen dealing vendor Trading Technologies has hit back at media reports that 'bad blood' between TT chief Harris Brumfield and BGC Partners CEO Howard Lutnick could mar the debut of new futures exchange ELX.
Broker-backed ELX is set to launch next week with live trading of US treasury futures contracts. The fledgling exchange will use technology supplied by coalition member BGC Partners.
However, half of the volume at the world's five biggest exchanges is currently directed via Trading Technologies' screens.
In June, an article in Crain's Chicago Business Journal speculated that TT's failure to so far offer a connection to ELX was down to personal friction between Brumfield and Lutnick following year's of legal wrangling over software patents.
In a statement, Brumfield says: "Although TT and BGC Partners have been involved in a legal dispute over the past several years, I don't know of any bad blood between Howard and me. Even if there was any, such a fact would not carry weight as to how TT prioritises exchange connectivity."
He says TT currently has sixteen exchanges on its exchange priority list and that ELX is in the "lower half" of this list. Priorities are assigned in accordance with user feedback and this inevitably leads to "judgment calls and decisions", he adds.
Brumfield says TT is presently in the process of building gateways to four of other exchanges.
"Before delivering any gateway to market, premium quality needs to be achieved," he says.