Merrill Lynch Taps Wombat

Merrill Lynch has signed a deal with Wombat Financial Software, a low-latency market data distribution technology vendor, to help it provide a market data infrastructure for the broker's electronic trading platform. "As Merrill Lynch builds the next generation of its electronic trading capabilities, we have fostered strong relationships with nascent market leaders, like Wombat," says Rohit D'Souza, head of global equity trading for Merrill Lynch's Global Markets and Investment Banking Group, in a prepared statement. Officials at the firm decline to provide further comment. The Wombat Platform encompasses feed handlers and multi-protocol messaging, among other features.

Reuters is facing a $50 million patent lawsuit from Ariel Communications, a U.K.-based dealing software company, that claims to retain the rights over the original code used to build an Instinet trading platform, now owned by Reuters. The lawsuit hit just as Reuters is in discussions to sell Instinet to Nasdaq for $1.9 billion, and while Reuters and Bloomberg are engaged in a patent infringement lawsuit concerning the same code. In 2004, Ariel granted Bloomberg a license to exploit the code. As for the latest case, Ariel officials say that Ariel received perpetual rights over future developments of Instinet after investing $175,000 in 1975, according to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian. Ariel officials could not be reached for comment by press time. "We believe this lawsuit has no merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves," says a Reuters spokesperson. Bloomberg officials did not return calls for comment.

Savvis Communications has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit from American Express over a $241,000 credit card bill that led to the suspension of the networking services vendor's CEO Robert McCormick. Attorneys for Savvis petitioned the Supreme Court of the State of New York to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the alleged charges were not business expenses and that Savvis is only liable for business expenses. According to press reports, McCormick says that he spent only $20,000 at a strip club in Manhattan in October 2003 for himself and three colleagues. In the wake of the scandal, McCormick stepped aside as CEO and Jack Finlayson has been named acting CEO.