NYSE Doesn’t Plan a Separate Oversight Body

The head of the newly public New York Stock Exchange said Thursday that it didn’t plan to create a separate body to oversee the exchange.

NYSE Group Inc. Chief Executive John Thain told the Senate Banking Committee that the exchange’s policing body, NYSE Regulation, had been set up as a subsidiary of the company, which was formed Tuesday by the 214-year-old Big Board’s merger with electronic rival Archipelago Holdings Inc. That structure differs from the setup for the Nasdaq Stock Market, which is overseen by the NASD (formerly the National Assn. of Securities Dealers).

As a condition for approving the NYSE merger, the SEC required the exchange to create NYSE Regulation -- without mandating that it be a separate entity. But there is some disagreement about the NYSE’s structure, and the commission may have to decide the issue.