FINRA Rule 11893

FINRA Rule 11893 sits within the 11890 Clearly Erroneous Transactions cluster of the 11000 Uniform Practice Code as its third rule, immediately following FINRA Rule 11892's exchange-listed securities framework and immediately preceding FINRA Rule 11894's UPC Committee review framework, the final rule of the cluster and of the entire FINRA Rule 11800 Close-Out Procedures subsection.

FINRA Rule 11893(a): The FINRA Officer Framework and Its Single-Deadline Timing Standard

FINRA Rule 11893(a) vests review authority in the same category of official this dictionary encountered in FINRA Rule 11892(a)(1) — an Executive Vice President of FINRA's Market Regulation Department or Transparency Services Department, or any officer designated by such Executive Vice President. This officer may, on his or her own motion — without requiring a member's request, though paragraph (a)'s structure does not foreclose a member bringing a transaction to the officer's attention informally — review any transaction involving an OTC Equity Security arising out of or reported through a trade reporting system owned or operated by FINRA or FINRA Regulation and authorized by the Commission.

The null-and-void grounds mirror FINRA Rule 11892(a)(1) precisely: the officer may declare a transaction null and void upon determining either (A) the transaction is clearly erroneous — invoking FINRA Rule 11891's core "obvious error" definition examined in this dictionary's earlier entry — or (B) such actions are necessary for the maintenance of a fair and orderly market or the protection of investors and the public interest — the same standard FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .02 first articulated, and which this dictionary has now traced through FINRA Rule 11892's paragraph (a), (b)(2)(C), (d), and (e).

The timing standard, however, departs meaningfully from FINRA Rule 11892's structure. Recall that FINRA Rule 11892(a)(1) established a dual standard — absent extraordinary circumstances, generally within 30 minutes after becoming aware of the transaction; when extraordinary circumstances exist, no later than the start of trading on the day following the date of execution. FINRA Rule 11893(a), by contrast, establishes a single, unitary standard — the officer shall take action pursuant to this paragraph as soon as possible after becoming aware of the transaction, but in all cases no later than the start of trading on the day following the date of the transaction(s) at issue.

This single-deadline approach dispenses with FINRA Rule 11892's bifurcated 30-minute/extraordinary-circumstances structure entirely. Where FINRA Rule 11892's bifurcation reflects the high-frequency, continuously-monitored character of exchange-listed trading — where LULD Price Bands, consolidated tapes, and automated surveillance systems make a 30-minute baseline both achievable and meaningful for the overwhelming majority of reviewable transactions, with the extraordinary-circumstances exception reserved for genuinely unusual situations — FINRA Rule 11893's OTC equity context, governed by Supplementary Material .01's limited-application policy, does not present the same volume of routine, rapid-turnaround determinations. A single as soon as possible, but no later than the next trading day standard provides adequate flexibility for the comparatively rare circumstances in which FINRA actually exercises this authority over OTC equity securities, without the administrative complexity of distinguishing ordinary from extraordinary circumstances for a category of determination that is, per Supplementary Material .01, itself extraordinary in the first instance.

The notification-and-appeal framework also parallels, but does not precisely replicate, FINRA Rule 11892(a)(2). Each party involved in the transaction shall be notified as soon as practicable by FINRA, and the party aggrieved by the action may appeal such action in accordance with Rule 11894 — establishing the same FINRA Rule 11894 appeal pathway this dictionary anticipates examining next. The carve-out from appealability, however, differs in formulation from FINRA Rule 11892(a)(2)'s two carve-outs (LULD-Price-Band-related Supplementary Material .02 determinations, and joint-SRO rulings). FINRA Rule 11893(a)'s sole carve-out applies unless the officer making the determination also determines that the number of the affected transactions is such that immediate finality is necessary to maintain a fair and orderly market and to protect investors and the public interest.

This immediate-finality carve-out generalizes the concept this dictionary examined in connection with FINRA Rule 11892(b)(2)(B)'s Multi-Stock Events involving twenty or more securities — there, the sheer number of affected transactions justified dispensing with certain procedural protections in favor of prompt, coordinated finality. FINRA Rule 11893(a) applies this same underlying logic — number of affected transactions warranting immediate finality — without tying it to FINRA Rule 11892's specific "Multi-Stock Event" defined terminology or its five-minute execution window. For OTC equity securities, a situation involving a large number of affected transactions (for example, arising from a single systems malfunction generating numerous erroneous OTC executions) could trigger this immediate-finality carve-out on its own terms, without needing to satisfy FINRA Rule 11892's Multi-Stock Event-specific definitional requirements — a sensible adaptation given that FINRA Rule 11893 operates independently of the LULD Plan infrastructure those FINRA Rule 11892 provisions are built around.

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1): The Numerical Guidelines Table in Detail

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1) establishes the threshold requirement — a transaction in an OTC Equity Security may be found to be clearly erroneous under this Rule only if the execution price of the transaction is away from the Reference Price by an amount that equals or exceeds the Numerical Guidelines set forth below. The only formulation here is significant — it establishes the Numerical Guidelines as a necessary (though, per paragraph (b)(3)'s Additional Factors, not necessarily sufficient on their own in every analytical sense) gateway condition: a transaction whose price deviation falls short of the applicable Numerical Guideline cannot be found clearly erroneous under FINRA Rule 11893, regardless of whatever Additional Factors might otherwise be present.

The table itself establishes seven price tiers, moving from the lowest-priced OTC equity securities to the highest:

For securities with a Reference Price of $0.9999 and under, the threshold is a flat 20% — the highest percentage threshold in the table, reflecting that very low-priced securities (sometimes informally called "penny stocks") exhibit proportionally larger ordinary price movements, such that even a substantial percentage deviation may represent ordinary trading rather than an obvious error.

For securities with a Reference Price between $1.0000 and $4.9999 inclusive, the table specifies a range: Low end of range minimum 20% – High end of range minimum 10%. This is the first of three range-based ("smoothed") tiers this dictionary will examine below.

For securities with a Reference Price between $5.0000 and $74.9999 inclusive, the threshold is a flat 10% — covering what might be considered the broad middle range of actively-traded OTC equity securities.

For securities with a Reference Price between $75.0000 and $199.9999 inclusive, the table again specifies a range: Low end of range minimum 10% – High end of range minimum 5% — the second smoothed tier.

For securities with a Reference Price between $200.0000 and $499.9999 inclusive, the threshold is a flat 5%.

For securities with a Reference Price between $500.0000 and $999.9999 inclusive, the table specifies a third range: Low end of range minimum 5% – High end of range minimum 3% — the third and final smoothed tier.

And for securities with a Reference Price of $1,000.0000 and over, the threshold is a flat 3% — the lowest percentage threshold in the table, reflecting that very high-priced securities exhibit proportionally smaller ordinary price movements in percentage terms, such that even a modest percentage deviation may represent a meaningfully anomalous price.

The Smoothing Mechanism: How the Range-Based Tiers Operate

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1)'s second and third sentences explain how the three range-based tiers operate — in some instances, the Numerical Guidelines set forth below are based on a range where the maximum percentage difference applies to the lower execution price in the range and the minimum percentage difference applies to the higher execution price in the range. The range is intended to smooth the percentage changes from tier to tier and allow for more gradual deviations.

To understand why this smoothing matters, consider what a purely flat-tier table (without ranges) would produce at a tier boundary. If the $5.0000–$74.9999 tier carried a flat 10% threshold and the immediately following tier — say, $75.0000 and above — carried a flat 5% threshold, then a security trading at $74.99 would be subject to a 10% clearly-erroneous threshold, while a security trading at $75.00 — a price differing by a single cent — would suddenly be subject to a 5% threshold, half as large. Two securities of essentially identical price would face dramatically different clearly-erroneous standards purely as an artifact of which side of an arbitrary price boundary they happened to fall on.

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1)'s range-based tiers eliminate this discontinuity. Consider the $75.0000–$199.9999 range, specified as Low end of range minimum 10% – High end of range minimum 5%. At the range's low end ($75.0000), the threshold is 10% — matching the flat 10% threshold of the immediately preceding $5.0000–$74.9999 tier, so a security trading at $74.99 (10% threshold) and a security trading at $75.00 (10%, at the low end of the new range) face essentially the same standard. At the range's high end ($199.9999), the threshold has gradually decreased to 5% — matching the flat 5% threshold of the immediately following $200.0000–$499.9999 tier, so a security trading at $199.99 (close to 5%) and a security trading at $200.00 (flat 5%) again face essentially the same standard. Between these endpoints, the threshold presumably interpolates — gradually decreasing from 10% toward 5% as the Reference Price increases from $75.0000 toward $199.9999 — though the rule's text does not specify the precise interpolation formula (linear or otherwise) beyond establishing the two endpoint values and the smoothing purpose.

The same smoothing logic applies to the $1.0000–$4.9999 range (smoothing between the $0.9999-and-under tier's flat 20% and the $5.0000–$74.9999 tier's flat 10%, with the range's low end at 20% and high end at 10%) and the $500.0000–$999.9999 range (smoothing between the $200.0000–$499.9999 tier's flat 5% and the $1,000.0000-and-over tier's flat 3%, with the range's low end at 5% and high end at 3%).

This range-based smoothing structure represents a meaningful point of structural distinction from FINRA Rule 11892's Numerical Guidelines table, which this dictionary examined as using flat percentage tiers (10%/20%, 5%/10%, 3%/6% across three price bands, inside/outside Normal Market Hours respectively) without an analogous range-based smoothing mechanism. This dictionary notes this as a confirmed structural difference between the two rules' tables — FINRA Rule 11893's seven-tier, partially-range-based table providing more granular, boundary-discontinuity-free thresholds across a wider span of price levels (from under $1 to over $1,000) than FINRA Rule 11892's three-tier flat table (covering up to $50 and above, with the table's highest flat tier applying to all prices above $50).

The Reference Price: "Prevailing Market Price Just Prior to the Time of the Trade"

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1)'s final sentence establishes the default Reference Price — the Reference Price will generally be the prevailing market price just prior to the time of the trade.

This formulation — prevailing market price just prior to the time of the trade — differs in its precise wording from FINRA Rule 11892(c)'s default Reference Price, which this dictionary examined as the consolidated last sale immediately prior to the execution(s) under review. While both formulations point toward a similar underlying concept — the market price immediately before the transaction under review — the prevailing market price formulation in FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1) is somewhat broader than FINRA Rule 11892(c)'s more specific consolidated last sale anchor. The prevailing market price could, depending on context, be informed by the prevailing bid, offer, or midpoint, or by the most recent transaction price, or by some combination — whereas consolidated last sale refers specifically to the most recent reported transaction price across the consolidated tape.

This difference plausibly reflects the different market-structure environments the two rules address. Exchange-listed securities, with their continuous consolidated tape and (for LULD-covered securities) continuously-updated Price Bands, present a relatively unambiguous consolidated last sale at almost any point in time. OTC equity securities — particularly the less liquid securities for which FINRA Rule 11893's lower price tiers (and Supplementary Material .01's limited-application policy) are most likely to be relevant — may trade considerably less frequently, such that a strict consolidated-last-sale anchor might, at certain points in time, refer to a transaction that occurred a considerable interval before the transaction under review. The somewhat more flexible prevailing market price formulation may afford FINRA officers slightly greater latitude in identifying an appropriate baseline price for thinly-traded OTC equity securities, before resorting to paragraph (b)(2)'s Alternative Reference Prices for genuinely unusual circumstances.

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(2): Alternative Reference Prices for Unusual Circumstances

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(2) establishes the departure mechanism from paragraph (b)(1)'s default — in unusual circumstances, which may include periods of extreme market volatility, sustained illiquidity, or widespread system issues, FINRA may, in its discretion and with a view toward maintaining a fair and orderly market and the protection of investors and the public interest, use a Reference Price other than the prevailing market price just prior to the time of the trade.

The three enumerated unusual circumstances — extreme market volatility, sustained illiquidity, and widespread system issues — directly parallel the catch-all category this dictionary examined in FINRA Rule 11892(c)(3), which used the identical formulation (relevant news impacting a security or securities, periods of extreme market volatility, sustained illiquidity, or widespread system issues) for that rule's third Reference Price exception. This shared vocabulary across FINRA Rule 11892(c)(3) and FINRA Rule 11893(b)(2) confirms these as common concepts operating across both rules within the FINRA Rule 11890 cluster — situations where the ordinary default Reference Price (consolidated last sale for FINRA Rule 11892; prevailing market price just prior to the trade for FINRA Rule 11893) may not represent a reliable baseline, warranting a substitute.

The four enumerated alternative Reference Prices — the consolidated inside price, the consolidated opening price, the consolidated prior close, or the consolidated last sale prior to a series of executions — each represent a different temporal or structural anchor point. The consolidated inside price refers to the best bid and offer across the consolidated quotation system at the relevant time — a quote-based, rather than transaction-based, reference. The consolidated opening price anchors to the trading day's opening, useful where the unusual circumstance (for example, overnight news) makes any intraday price suspect. The consolidated prior close anchors to the previous trading day's close — a baseline unaffected by whatever intraday disruption is occurring. And the consolidated last sale prior to a series of executions addresses precisely the scenario this dictionary examined in connection with FINRA Rule 11892(b)(2)(B)'s Multi-Stock Event framework and FINRA Rule 11892(d)'s Multi-day Events — where a series of transactions, rather than a single isolated transaction, is under review, the relevant baseline becomes the last sale prior to that entire series, rather than the last sale immediately prior to any individual transaction within it (which, for transactions occurring later in the series, might itself already reflect the very price distortion under review).

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(3): The Additional Factors — A Shared Vocabulary with FINRA Rule 11892

FINRA Rule 11893(b)(3) provides a list of Additional Factors a FINRA officer may consider — including but not limited to system malfunctions or disruptions; volume and volatility for the security; derivative securities products that correspond to greater than 100% in the direction of a tracking index; news released for the security; whether trading in the security was recently halted/resumed; whether the security is an IPO; whether the security was subject to a stock-split, reorganization, or other corporate action; overall market conditions; Opening and Late Session executions; validity of the consolidated tapes, trades and quotes; consideration of primary market indications; and executions inconsistent with the trading pattern in the stock — each considered with a view toward maintaining a fair and orderly market and the protection of investors and the public interest.

This list is, in its enumerated content, essentially identical to FINRA Rule 11892(b)(2)(C)'s Additional Factors list examined in this dictionary's earlier entry — confirming that, notwithstanding the structural differences this entry has identified between the two rules' core frameworks (timing standards, Numerical Guidelines table structure, Reference Price defaults), the underlying considerations FINRA officers weigh in the discretionary, context-dependent dimension of a clearly erroneous determination are shared across both the exchange-listed and OTC equity contexts. A system malfunction, an unusual volume or volatility profile, a leveraged derivative product's mechanically-amplified price movement, a news event, a recent halt or resumption, IPO status, a corporate action, broader market conditions, session-timing considerations, consolidated tape data-quality questions, primary-market indications, and trading-pattern inconsistency are each, in principle, equally relevant whether the security under review is exchange-listed or trades over-the-counter — what differs between the two rules is not which factors might bear on the analysis, but rather (per Supplementary Material .01) how readily, and under what overall posture, FINRA's clearly erroneous authority is actually exercised in the first place for OTC equity securities specifically.

FINRA Rule 11893(c): "OTC Equity Security" — The Rule 6420 Cross-Reference

FINRA Rule 11893(c) defines the rule's central scope-determining term — for purposes of this Rule, the term "OTC Equity Security" has the same meaning as defined in Rule 6420, except that the term shall not include any equity security that is traded on any national securities exchange.

FINRA Rule 6420 sits within FINRA's 6400 Series — the body of rules governing the quotation and trading of OTC equity securities, including the OTC Bulletin Board and similar quotation mediums for securities not listed on a national securities exchange. By incorporating FINRA Rule 6420's definition as its base, FINRA Rule 11893(c) draws on whatever comprehensive definitional framework FINRA Rule 6420 establishes for OTC equity securities generally — a framework this dictionary has not previously needed to examine in connection with the 11000 series.

The except clause then performs the critical scope-allocation function within the FINRA Rule 11890 cluster — by excluding any equity security that is traded on any national securities exchange from FINRA Rule 11893's OTC Equity Security definition, paragraph (c) ensures that FINRA Rule 11892's exchange-listed securities scope and FINRA Rule 11893's OTC Equity Securities scope do not overlap. A given equity security falls within exactly one of these two rules' scope at any given time — exchange-listed securities (however FINRA Rule 11892 itself defines that category, presumably also by reference to relevant Exchange Act or exchange-listing concepts) fall under FINRA Rule 11892, while equity securities meeting FINRA Rule 6420's OTC Equity Security definition but not traded on any national securities exchange fall under FINRA Rule 11893. This mutual-exclusivity structure ensures the FINRA Rule 11890 cluster's two security-category-specific rules together provide complete, non-overlapping coverage of equity securities generally (with debt securities, rights, warrants, and other non-equity instruments presumably falling outside both rules' scope, though this dictionary does not assert this beyond what paragraph (c)'s text directly establishes for equity securities specifically).

Supplementary Material .01: The Limited-Application Policy, Its Two-Part Rationale, and the Private-Settlement Expectation

Supplementary Material .01, Limited Application of Clearly Erroneous Authority to Transactions in OTC Equity Securities, establishes the single most consequential piece of guidance within FINRA Rule 11893 — with respect to OTC Equity Securities in particular, FINRA historically has applied its clearly erroneous authority in only very limited circumstances, for example, where there is an extraordinary event that has had a material effect on the market for the OTC Equity Security and the canceling of trades is necessary to protect investors and ensure a fair and orderly marketplace.

The historically framing is notable — it signals that this limited-application posture is not merely an aspirational or prospective policy, but reflects FINRA's actual, observed pattern of exercising (or, more precisely, generally not exercising) this authority over OTC equity securities. The example given — an extraordinary event that has had a material effect on the market for the OTC Equity Security, where canceling trades is necessary to protect investors and ensure a fair and orderly marketplace — directly echoes FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .03's extraordinary market conditions framing, which this dictionary examined as describing situations where an extraordinary event has occurred or is ongoing that has had a material effect on the market for a security traded over-the-counter. Supplementary Material .01's example for FINRA Rule 11893 thus represents the OTC-specific application of the very category FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .03 anticipated.

The second sentence provides the rationale, structured around two distinct points of contrast between the OTC equity and exchange-listed markets. The first point — the lack of compulsory information flows in the OTC equity market that come as a result of the listing process — identifies an informational asymmetry. National securities exchanges impose listing requirements on the securities they list, and these requirements generate certain standardized, compulsory information flows (financial reporting, corporate action disclosures processed through the listing exchange, and so on) that, among other things, feed into the kind of consolidated-tape and LULD-Plan infrastructure this dictionary examined extensively in connection with FINRA Rule 11892. OTC equity securities — many of which are not subject to the same listing-driven disclosure regime — may lack this informational infrastructure, making it correspondingly more difficult for FINRA to establish, with the same confidence, what a security's theoretical or fundamental value should be at any given moment — a determination that FINRA Rule 11892(c)(2)'s erroneous-Reference-Price framework (with its theoretical value language) presupposes can be made with reasonable confidence for exchange-listed securities undergoing corporate actions.

The second point — the fact that aberrant trading in the OTC equity market is often due to issues other than systems problems or extraordinary events — is, if anything, more consequential still. This dictionary's earlier entry on FINRA Rule 11891 examined Supplementary Material .04's Account Intrusion provision, which confirmed that FINRA's clearly erroneous authority under the Rule 11890 Series does not extend to unauthorized trading activity or attempts to manipulate stock prices by illegally gaining access to legitimate accounts or opening new accounts using false information... Such suspicious trading activities relate to allegations of fraud and therefore are not within the scope of the Rule 11890 Series.

Read together, FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .04 and FINRA Rule 11893 Supplementary Material .01's second rationale point form a coherent picture specific to the OTC equity market: a meaningful proportion of what might, on its face, appear to be an "obvious error" in an OTC equity security's price — the kind of anomaly that FINRA Rule 11891's core definition would, taken in isolation, seem to capture — may in fact reflect manipulative or fraudulent conduct (the kind of conduct FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .04 places outside the Rule 11890 Series' scope entirely) rather than a genuine systems problem or extraordinary market event of the kind the Rule 11890 Series is designed to remedy. Because the OTC equity market is, per Supplementary Material .01, disproportionately prone to this issues-other-than-systems-problems-or-extraordinary-events category relative to the exchange-listed market, FINRA's clearly erroneous authority — which Supplementary Material .04 confirms is simply the wrong tool for fraud-related aberrant trading regardless of market — correspondingly has narrower practical application to OTC equity securities than to exchange-listed securities, where aberrant trading is comparatively more likely to stem from the systems problems and extraordinary events the Rule 11890 Series does address.

The final sentence states the resulting practical expectation in direct terms — as a result, in the vast majority of situations relating to OTC Equity Securities, FINRA does not expect to use its clearly erroneous authority; rather, FINRA expects the parties to settle any dispute privately. This private-settlement expectation represents perhaps the most significant practical takeaway from FINRA Rule 11893 as a whole — for the overwhelming majority of disputes regarding the terms of an OTC equity security transaction, the elaborate FINRA-officer-review-and-UPC-Committee-appeal framework this dictionary has examined throughout FINRA Rules 11891 through 11893 (and will examine further in connection with FINRA Rule 11894) is not, as a practical matter, the mechanism through which such disputes are expected to be resolved — that mechanism is private negotiation and settlement between the parties themselves, with FINRA's formal clearly erroneous authority reserved for the comparatively rare extraordinary-event scenario Supplementary Material .01's first sentence describes.

The Amendment History: Simultaneous 2010 Origins and the 2024 T+1 Connection

FINRA Rule 11893's amendment history — Adopted by SR-FINRA-2009-068, effective February 15, 2010, amended by SR-FINRA-2010-002, also effective February 15, 2010, SR-FINRA-2015-034 effective December 20, 2015, and SR-FINRA-2023-017 effective May 28, 2024 — presents a notable feature this dictionary has not previously encountered: two separate rule filings (SR-FINRA-2009-068 and SR-FINRA-2010-002) both becoming effective on the identical date, February 15, 2010. This dual-simultaneous-effective-date pattern recalls, though is structurally distinct from, the dual-filing-same-date pattern this dictionary observed for FINRA Rules 11100, 11560, and 11574 (each amended by both SR-FINRA-2010-030 and SR-FINRA-2010-060, both effective December 15, 2010) — there, two filings amended an existing rule on the same date; here, one filing adopted FINRA Rule 11893 and a second filing amended it, both effective the same day, suggesting FINRA Rule 11893's initial adoption and an immediate first amendment were coordinated to take effect simultaneously.

This February 15, 2010 origin also directly connects to FINRA Rule 11891's most recent amendment — SR-FINRA-2009-068 effective February 15, 2010 — confirming that FINRA Rule 11891's last substantive amendment and FINRA Rule 11893's original adoption were part of the same coordinated filing (SR-FINRA-2009-068), consistent with both rules sharing Notice 10-04 (the January 15, 2010 "SEC Approves Consolidated FINRA Rules Governing Clearly Erroneous Transactions" notice this dictionary has now traced across FINRA Rules 11890, 11891, 11892, and 11893).

The SR-FINRA-2023-017 effective May 28, 2024 amendment — sharing Notice 24-04 with FINRA Rules 11140, 11150, 11210, 11320, 11620, and 11860 — represents FINRA Rule 11893's most recent refinement, and stands in contrast to FINRA Rule 11892's most recent amendment (SR-FINRA-2022-027 effective October 1, 2022), which predates the T+1 transition. This dictionary cannot, from its confirmed sources, identify the specific substantive content of FINRA Rule 11893's May 2024 amendment, but notes the confirmed fact that FINRA Rule 11893 — unlike FINRA Rule 11892 — was revisited as part of the broader T+1 settlement cycle conformity initiative, an initiative this dictionary has now traced across seven distinct 11000-series provisions (FINRA Rules 11140, 11150, 11210, 11320, 11620, 11860, and now 11893).

Connection to FINRA Rules 6420, 11110, 11140, 11150, 11210, 11220, 11320, 11620, 11860, 11890, 11891, 11892, and 11894

FINRA Rule 11893 connects directly and for the first time in this dictionary's coverage to FINRA Rule 6420 — the 6400 Series OTC equity quotation and trading provision whose definition of "OTC Equity Security" FINRA Rule 11893(c) incorporates, narrowed by the exclusion of exchange-traded equity securities to maintain mutual exclusivity with FINRA Rule 11892's scope. It connects to FINRA Rule 11110 — the UPC Committee framework underlying FINRA Rule 11894's review mechanism, which both FINRA Rule 11892(a)(2) and FINRA Rule 11893(a) invoke for appeals. It connects to FINRA Rules 11140, 11150, 11210, 11320, 11620, and 11860 — sharing Notice 24-04 and the SR-FINRA-2023-017 T+1 conformity amendment effective May 28, 2024, the seventh provision in this dictionary's coverage to bear this connection. It connects to FINRA Rule 11220 — whose description-of-securities and price/quantity framework underlies the Numerical Guidelines' price-and-percentage analysis. It connects to FINRA Rule 11890 — sharing Notice 10-04 as a directly-displayed selected notice, and as the parent series marker for the cluster FINRA Rule 11893 belongs to. It connects directly and extensively to FINRA Rule 11891 — sharing the core "clearly erroneous" definition FINRA Rule 11893(a) invokes, sharing the February 15, 2010 SR-FINRA-2009-068 origin date, and with Supplementary Material .01's limited-application rationale building directly on FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .03's extraordinary-market-conditions framing and Supplementary Material .04's account-intrusion/fraud-exclusion principle. It connects extensively and structurally to FINRA Rule 11892 — sharing the FINRA officer authority framework, the null-and-void grounds, the Additional Factors list (in substantially identical form), and the unusual-circumstances vocabulary underlying both rules' Alternative/exception Reference Price provisions, while differing in timing standard (single deadline versus dual 30-minute/extraordinary-circumstances standard), Numerical Guidelines table structure (seven range-smoothed tiers versus three flat tiers, and the corresponding absence of LULD Plan integration), default Reference Price formulation (prevailing market price just prior to the trade versus consolidated last sale immediately prior), and — most fundamentally — the overall policy posture toward exercising this authority (FINRA Rule 11892's comprehensive, frequently-invoked LULD-integrated framework versus FINRA Rule 11893's exceptional, rarely-invoked, private-settlement-favoring framework). And it connects to FINRA Rule 11894 — the final rule of the cluster and of the entire FINRA Rule 11800 subsection, providing the UPC Committee review mechanism both FINRA Rule 11892 and FINRA Rule 11893 reference.

Examination Relevance and Key Takeaways

FINRA Rule 11893 is tested on the Series 7 and Series 24 examinations as the clearly erroneous transaction framework for OTC Equity Securities — structurally parallel to FINRA Rule 11892 in its FINRA officer authority, null-and-void grounds, and Additional Factors, but governed by a substantially narrower application policy and built around a distinct Numerical Guidelines structure.

The key points to retain are these: FINRA Rule 11893(a) authorizes an Executive Vice President of FINRA's Market Regulation or Transparency Services Department (or designee) to review OTC Equity Security transactions on his or her own motion and declare them null and void if clearly erroneous or necessary for fair-and-orderly-market and investor-protection purposes, acting as soon as possible but in all cases no later than the start of trading on the day following the transaction, with FINRA Rule 11894 appeal rights except where the number of affected transactions makes immediate finality necessary; FINRA Rule 11893(b)(1) establishes a seven-tier Numerical Guidelines table running from 20% (under $1.00) down to 3% (over $1,000.00), with three range-based tiers ($1.00–$4.9999, $75.00–$199.9999, and $500.00–$999.9999) that smooth the percentage threshold from the higher tier's value at the range's low end to the lower tier's value at the range's high end, avoiding discontinuous jumps at tier boundaries — with the default Reference Price being the prevailing market price just prior to the time of the trade, a formulation somewhat broader than FINRA Rule 11892's consolidated-last-sale anchor, reflecting the comparatively thinner trading of many OTC equity securities; FINRA Rule 11893(b)(2) permits Alternative Reference Prices (consolidated inside price, opening price, prior close, or last sale prior to a series of executions) in unusual circumstances — extreme volatility, sustained illiquidity, or widespread system issues — paralleling FINRA Rule 11892(c)(3)'s identical vocabulary; FINRA Rule 11893(b)(3) provides an Additional Factors list essentially identical to FINRA Rule 11892's; FINRA Rule 11893(c) defines "OTC Equity Security" by reference to FINRA Rule 6420, excluding any exchange-traded equity security to maintain mutual exclusivity with FINRA Rule 11892's scope; and Supplementary Material .01 establishes that FINRA's clearly erroneous authority over OTC equity securities is exercised only in very limited circumstances — historically, extraordinary events with material market effects — given both the OTC market's lack of listing-driven information flows and the tendency of aberrant OTC trading to stem from fraud-related issues (connecting directly to FINRA Rule 11891 Supplementary Material .04's account-intrusion exclusion) rather than systems problems, with FINRA generally expecting the parties to settle disputes privately rather than invoking this authority. The rule was most recently amended effective May 28, 2024 through SR-FINRA-2023-017 (the seventh 11000-series provision in this dictionary's coverage to bear the T+1 conformity amendment), with prior amendments by SR-FINRA-2015-034 effective December 20, 2015, and both its adoption by SR-FINRA-2009-068 and amendment by SR-FINRA-2010-002, both effective February 15, 2010, with three selected notices — 10-04, 16-04, and 24-04.