The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has agreed to pay a USD 9 million civil fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle charges arising from a computer systems failure in January 2023 that caused significant disruption to stock market opening auctions.
The incident occurred on 24 January 2023, when the NYSE inadvertently ran its primary trading system, Pillar Production, and its backup disaster recovery system, Pillar DR, simultaneously. The error caused the primary system to treat opening auctions for 2,824 of the exchange's 3,421 listed securities as having already taken place, when they had not.
Scale of disruption and regulatory findings
The malfunction resulted in trading halts for 84 stocks, including 81 whose prices fell more than 10% without any apparent cause. More than 4,000 trades were subsequently cancelled, or "busted". Stocks affected included ExxonMobil, McDonald's, 3M, Verizon, Walmart, and Wells Fargo. Additionally, the NYSE paid member companies more than USD 5.77 million in compensation for trading losses resulting from the incident.
According to the SEC, the NYSE took 39 minutes to identify that the opening auctions had been mishandled, and 83 minutes to assess the full scope of the disruption. Moreover, the regulator found that this response time reflected a lack of adequate written policies and procedures to support the exchange's auction processes.
The settlement was announced on 7 March 2026. Intercontinental Exchange, the US-based parent company of the NYSE, said it has since optimised its procedures and systems in response to the incident.
Furthermore, the case highlights the operational risk that market infrastructure providers face when contingency systems interact with primary platforms, and the regulatory expectations around documented procedures for managing auction processes at systemically significant venues.
The news follows the NYSE's announcement regarding its work on a platform for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities. Back in January 2026, the company planned to seek regulatory approvals, which would allow its platform to support tokenized trading experiences, including 24/7 operations, instant settlement, orders sized in USD, and stablecoin-based funding.
