Well, I was wrong. A couple of weeks ago, when the Nasdaq gave Dell an extension
rather than forcing the computer company to delist, I
said that if Dell hadn’t filed the required reports by July 16, it would
"simply get another extension". What was I thinking? Of course it
didn’t. Instead, the Nasdaq board has simply decided that Dell shares can
continue to trade on their exchange indefinitely, despite the fact that
it hasn’t filed its past four quarterly reports, or its annual report.
You might consider this to be self-interested spinelessness on the part of
the Nasdaq – after all, what’s the point of reporting rules, if you waive
them the minute they’re broken? You might also consider this to be a case for
the SEC to look into, since the SEC does nominally regulate the Nasdaq –
a point made by a commenter on my earlier post. That comment was followed up
by one from The Panelist’s David
Neubert:
Nasdaq would have a hard time dealing with the reduction in revenue from
losing the 20 million shares a day volume from Dell. As a for profit public
company why would NASDAQ actually care about the public trust? They aren’t
a regulator anymore. Oh, I’m sorry they do have some regulatory responsibility.
. . . (can you say henhouse or fox?)
It seems that there’s a double standard at Nasdaq (and, I suspect, at the NYSE
as well). If a company is relatively small – small enough that its volume
doesn’t contribute significantly to the exchange’s bottom line – then
the exchange will be tough. On the other hand, if the company in question has
a large float of shares outstanding, it has de facto impunity when
it comes to listing requirements and the like.