고빈도거래 규제에 대한 비교법적 고찰

High-frequency trading (“HFT”) is rapidly becoming a target of concern among global market regulators. In November 2010, the G20 Seoul Summit launched an action plan with the purpose of achieving strong, sustainable, and balanced growth. The commitment called for significant policy actions in reforming the financial sector to promote market integrity and efficiency to mitigate risks posed to financial systems by the latest technological developments. Currently in the U.S., high-speed trading firms and exchanges are being forced into the lobbying game by taxes on trades in Europe, proposals for similar levies in the U.S. and reinforced regulatory scrutiny. HFT has improved market efficiency by providing a wide range of trading venues and services at lower transaction costs to investors. However, certain HFT strategies, such as naked sponsored access, are problematic in potentially creating a systemic risk in the equity markets. U.S. and European regulators have taken the threat of systemic events like the Flash Crash seriously, placing them on the right track regarding HFT policy. Regulators seeking to eliminate market abuse should also closely scrutinize the question of whether HFT’s market quality benefits substantially outweigh accompanying harms. Until now, regulators have focused on largely on avoiding Flash Crash-like events by beefing up circuit breakers, closing regulatory loopholes like naked access and the exemption in MiFID Article 2, and encouraging more industry self-regulation. These are steps in the right direction, but the facts suggest that regulators should do more to ensure market integrity. Strict order cancellation taxes or resting rules would likely reduce systemic risk and diminish opportunities for market abuse. These benefits would come at only a questionable cost to market liquidity and price efficiency.