FTSE Xinhua Index to appeal court ruling

The Shanghai Pudong New Area District Court ruled yesterday that FTSE Xinhua Index Ltd violated a contract with the Shanghai Stock Exchange related to pricing data, the Wall Street Journal reported. The court ordered the cancellation of the year-old contract and ordered FTSE Xinhua Index to pay the exchange damages of US$20,000, according to Fredy Bush, co-chairman of FTSE Xinhua. Bush said the company will appeal the decision, and that in the meantime it has an existing contract to obtain Shanghai stock data from a Chinese newspaper and will face no disruption in its ability to calculate the values of the SGX FTSE Xinhua China A50 Index Futures contract, a product it licenses in Singapore. The Shanghai Stock Exchange, which had no comment Wednesday, has argued it has the right to determine how its pricing data are used, while the index firm said that international practice is to put such information into the public domain.