LexisNexis owner backs banks in dispute over stock recommendations

Publishing company Reed Elsevier, which owns LexisNexis, is asking a federal appeals court to uphold a finding that TheFlyOnTheWall.com misappropriates banks’ ‘hot news’ by reposting their stock recommendations.

Wendy Davis of MediaPost writes, “Reed Elsevier says in a recent court filing that it could face ‘devastating economic effects’ if it lost the ability to prevent other publishers from summarizing its time-sensitive material. The company runs news services like The Pink Sheet Daily, which offers updated news about the biopharmaceutical industry, and ICIS.com, a news service about the chemical industry. It also owns the LexisNexis databases.

“‘Reed Elsevier has invested and continues to invest billions of dollars in the collection, organization, and verification of the information provided through these services in print, email, and via the internet,’ the company says in its legal papers, adding that laws preventing misappropriation prevent ‘economically destructive conduct by those who wish to reap where they have not sown.’

“The current legal debate about hot news stems from a lawsuit by Barclays, Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, alleging that the site TheFlyOnTheWall.com unlawfully posted summaries of the banks’ time-sensitive research before their clients received the information.”

Read more here. The Associated Press, the parent company of American City Business Journals, the New York Times Co. and other media companies have also filed an amicus brief in the case.