Board of Trade of Chicago v. Christie Grain & Stock Co.
Headline: Court upholds a major grain exchange’s right to block others from taking and publishing its continuous market price quotes, letting the exchange stop competitors and bucket shops from using stolen data.
Holding: The Court held that the Chicago Board of Trade may stop others from obtaining and publishing its continuously collected grain price quotations obtained by inducing breaches of confidential contracts and ordered them to cease that use.
- Lets exchanges block competitors from publishing their live price quotes without permission.
- Protects an exchange’s paid collection of market data as a trade-secret-like asset.
- Makes it harder for bucket shops to use stolen continuous price feeds.
Summary
Background
The Chicago Board of Trade, a long-established grain exchange that runs dedicated trading pits, collects continuous price quotations for wheat, corn, and provisions and shares them confidentially with telegraph companies and subscribers. The Board sued several defendants who were obtaining and publishing those continuous quotations without signing the Board’s confidentiality contracts; the defendants deny the Board’s claimed rights and some were alleged to run "bucket shops" (places taking bets on price movements).
Reasoning
The core question was whether the Board’s continuous price collection is protectable and whether its own market practices destroy that protection. The Court treated the collected quotations like a trade secret — work the Board paid for and kept confidential — and held that sharing the information under contracts does not make it public. The Court rejected the argument that routine settlement methods in the pits (set-offs and ring settlements that often avoid physical delivery) turned the trading into mere wagers that would bar protection. Because the defendants did not get the quotations through authorized channels and declined the confidentiality agreements, the Court found the Board entitled to stop their use of the data.
Real world impact
The ruling lets an exchange use courts to prevent others from taking and publishing its time-sensitive market quotations obtained by breaching confidential arrangements. That protects exchanges’ control over who may receive and republish live price feeds and makes it harder for unlicensed outfits to undercut or build betting operations on those feeds.
Dissents or concurrances
Three Justices (Harlan, Brewer, and Day) dissented. The opinion notes their disagreement but does not detail their reasoning in the text provided.
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