4876 Santa Monica Avenue, Box 111.

San Diego, CA 92107

+1 (619) 225-7882 fax +1 (619) 523-3862
September 24, 2015
Australian Securities & Investments Commission
VIA FAX +61 3 5177 3999
Financial Conduct Authority (UK)
VIA FAX +44 0207 066 1099
Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA)
VIA EMAIL Jarmo.Parkkonen@fiav.fi, Jyri.Helenius@fiav.fi
Malta Financial Services Authority
VIA FAX +356 2144 1188
RE: REQUEST FOR EMERGENCY INTERVENTION
To Whom It May Concern:
I am the CEO of Commercial Network Services (CNS). We are a global online service provider hosting
thousands of (mostly) retail FOREX traders located in more than 160 countries. In order to provide our
subscribers with the highest quality of service, we peer our network with more than 1000 other
networks worldwide, all settlement free ( https://radar.qrator.net/as29697 ). This provides an ideal
connection between our subscribers hosted trading applications and their broker your regulated
entities. Many traders with latency sensitive strategies rely on the stable and very low latency network
provided by our private peering connections to various brokers and other industry participants.
PrimeXM (PXM) is a technology service provider to the FOREX industry. They provide their clients your
regulated brokers a MetaTrader bridge, order routing and aggregation engine1. In short, the trading
terminals of the retail traders of PXM client brokers connect to the PXM network to execute trades on
the global FOREX market.

http://www.primexm.com/connectivity

To our knowledge, these brokers are:

Benchmark Group
Sensus
FX Optimax
ADSS
BDFX
DCFX Broker
Firewoodfx
Valbury Capital
Armada
Divisa
LMAX
MTCOOK
Saxo
Synergy FX
Tickmill
FxEthos
Forex FS
DCFX
FinFX-PRO
Traders Trust
Go Markets
PXM has been connected to the CNS network thru settlement free private peering links in the United
States and United Kingdom for some time. Many retail traders use these low latency circuits to connect
their trading software to your regulated brokers hosted by PXM. PXM also uses these same circuits to
connect their back-end with an ASIC regulated broker hosted in the UK, who we provide transit service
for. Because both networks are connected to ours, they have been enjoying the free and private transit
connectivity as a benefit of simply being connected to our ON NET network. This provides for a more
ideal trading environment for those retail traders too not necessarily hosted by CNS - because the
connectivity on the back end between the broker and PXM is transiting our private network rather than
commercial transit routes.
On Tuesday morning (September 22, 2015) we received from PXM a demand for payment in order to
continue these same settlement free peering connections between our networks. We declined their
demand as a matter of policy. PXMs CEO Clive Diethelm sent a response within minutes which
contained, among other things, their intent to terminate the settlement free peering links this coming
weekend.
Mr. Diethelm has a history of irrational behavior. Just last year he approached all connected VPS
providers for the same reasons, and after all declined his request for payment to maintain these
mutually beneficial peering links, he targeted CNS specifically for disconnection on short notice out of
spite. However, ultimately all VPS providers made their intent clear to Mr. Diethelm, which was to
disconnect their peering links as well if CNS was disconnected. At that point, Mr. Diethelm recanted and
all providers to my knowledge have remained connected without any major issues. I have no
information to suggest Mr. Diethelm has targeted any other connected provider for peering fees.

In this case, Mr. Diethelm s irrational behavior of only 3 days notice before effecting what could be a
substantial change to the trading conditions for some unknown retail traders demonstrates a systemic
risk to retail traders of your regulated brokers who are hosted by PXM. I reasonably believe this current
behavior is for no reason other than spite.
We immediately reached out to affected brokers on Tuesday. I hoped they would be able to protect
their end-traders by convincing PXM that it is not reasonable to effect any changes in their traders
trading environment, especially with only three days notice, and certainly not out of spite.
Unfortunately, PXM brokers are at the mercy of PXM because PXM operates the network and
infrastructure to connect their retail traders to the global FOREX market. They are simply powerless to
do anything about Mr. Diethelm s irrational behavior or such short notice.
After not hearing any positive news back by Wednesday morning, we issued a service advisory to all CNS
FOREX traders to alert them of a potentially substantial change to their trading environment. As a
neutral service provider, we do not monitor what any trader is doing. Their hosted environments are
their own property. We simply are a conduit for retail traders to trade. We have no real means to
identify which traders may be running latency sensitive trading strategies and could be affected by this
action of PXM.
In my experience, many traders tend to simply keep their trading terminals running and do not monitor
the day to day. In fact that has become our slogan keep it running. Many may not be readily
reachable because they reside in remote areas or are on vacation, etc... I reasonably believe that there
are traders who will have not received reasonable notice of what could be a substantial change to
their trading environment and are at imminent risk of experiencing financial losses due to the
irrational behavior by PrimeXMs CEO, Mr. Clive Diethelm. I also have no reasonable reason to
believe Mr. Diethelm/PrimeXM will cease this action without immediate emergency regulatory
intervention.
I request you find it within your authority as regulators of PXM brokers to order PXM to maintain these
connections until reasonable notice has been provided to all retail traders who may be affected by Mr.
Diethelms decision to terminate these circuits.
I remain reachable by email. Barry@CommercialNetworkServices.com

Respectfully Submitted,

Barry Bahrami
Barry Bahrami
Chief Executive Officer

cc:
Clive Diethelm