Today the court in The Hague ruled that trading platform TOM may continue to offer options based on the AEX index and that TOM is allowed to refer to the AEX-index in the description of the options.
Nevertheless, TOM will have to add a new ticker symbol for these options. The ticker symbols refer to the abbreviations used to indicate which option is traded. Euronext had filed a lawsuit against TOM for offering options based on the AEX index and the general use of ticker symbols.
"As offering options based on the AEX index is now also approved by the court as well, an important monopoly of the incumbent exchanges is broken," said Willem Meijer, CEO of TOM.
Three of the four claims Euronext had set, are rejected by the court. The allegation that TOM would spread misleading information is rejected. Also, the claim of Euronext that TOM should change all their other ticker symbols which refer to the AEX, is rejected