One of the biggest critics of naked sponsored access was a then-little known high-frequency trading brokerage called Lime Brokerage, which proceeded to steadily build a name for itself as market access and high-frequency trading issues heated up.

No one was surprised when Lime Brokerage followed up its criticism of naked access with the launch of a risk management service that would allow high-frequency trading outfits to comply with rules that require all orders to be filtered and risk-checked before they hit a market center. Companies are jockeying for position as the new rules for sponsored access loom--July 14 is the effective date for rule 15c3-5.

The boldest move so far was announced by Wedbush Securities, which will buy Lime Brokerage to gain to risk-check and filtering tools. Los Angeles-based Wedbush is a massive market-access provider to high-frequency trading firms, accounting for about 20 percent of U.S. average daily equities volume. Given Lime's solid reputation, Wedbush now has a great story to tell clients worried about the new rules. Lime's employees, more than half of whom are technologists and developers, will continue to work in their offices in Waltham, Massachusetts, New York and Jersey City, according to Bloomberg.

Other high-frequency trading brokerages will be busy touting their risk management tools. At this point, most high-frequency trading firms have no doubt had many discussions with their market access providers. The new rule is good news in the sense that it gives them another critical technology to sell. One wild card looming over all of this is whether industry lobbyists will be successful in getting the effective date pushed back. That is still possible.

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