Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIH), the parent holding company of the MIAX Options Exchange and MIAX PEARL, LLC (MIAX PEARL) today responded to the filing of a complaint with the District Court of New Jersey by Nasdaq, Inc., Nasdaq ISE, LLC, and FTEN, Inc. (collectively NASDAQ) against MIH and its wholly-owned subsidiaries Miami International Securities Exchange, LLC, MIAX PEARL and MIAX Technologies, LLC. The complaint generally alleges various claims of patent infringement and trade secret appropriation by MIH and its subsidiaries.
“It has been brought to our attention that NASDAQ has filed a frivolous complaint against MIH today,” stated Thomas P. Gallagher, Chairman and CEO of MIH. “While we have not been formally served, we are fully committed to vigorously defending ourselves against these baseless allegations.”
“As highlighted in a recent article in Forbes, large businesses have engaged in a trend of abusing the court system to file frivolous patent claims against smaller companies as a bullying tactic.” Continued Gallagher, “We believe that NASDAQ’s complaint is nothing more than a feeble attempt to stifle innovation by a smaller company that has had tremendous success over the past five years.”
Mr. Gallagher further stated, “Many of our employees have been with us for between 6 to 10 years and we believe that the timing of NASDAQ’s filing is very suspicious. It is worth noting that NASDAQ, along with other competitors within our industry, unsuccessfully attempted to recruit the heart of our technology team over the past several years offering millions of dollars in cash and equity-based compensation to no avail. Only after we continued our track record of unparalleled performance and strong growth did NASDAQ file a baseless complaint.
If the bullies at NASDAQ’s New York City headquarters had a legitimate grievance against our company or our employees, why did NASDAQ’s top management try to aggressively recruit these same employees over the past several years? We have treasured honest and innovative employees in all aspects of our company, and I am outraged by this frivolous action and we will defend our company and our employees against this unethical and anticompetitive conduct. These bullies are losing to us in technological innovation and will lose to us in court as well. We fully intend to explore all legal avenues in response to NASDAQ’s unfounded claims.”
