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THE STORY OF THE DEPOSITORY TRUST & CLEARING CORPORATION
Up and Running
While DTCC was able to complete settlement on 9/11 just a few hours later than normal, Considine received a call from the White House later that week telling her that a decision had been made to reopen the markets again on Monday: “Will you be ready?” I said, “Of course we’re ready,” and they asked, “What can we do for you?” I said, “I’d really like to get some people in over the weekend because we had $32 billion worth of securities in our vault.” They heard that number and said, “We’re sending you the National Guard, and we’re just gonna guard your building.” I said, “That’s the last thing we need. I don’t want to draw attention to the building and the assets we have in custody. But if you could assist with getting some staff in, that would be very helpful.” They asked, “Is there anything else we could do?” I jokingly said, “Well, I’d appreciate a change of clothes and some real food. I’m sick of eating microwave popcorn and oatmeal.” But we were ready and we were up and running again on Monday. Maintaining settlement was vital to keeping a fragile economy going. “This is before we went to T+3,” said Larry Thompson, DTCC’s vice chairman, managing director and general counsel. “Even though the equity market didn’t open on 9/11, which meant you didn’t have any new trades taking place, you
Above: As DTCC’s general counsel, Larry Thompson coordinated with New York’s
Office of Emergency Management team as the events of 9/11 continued to unfold.
Below: Despite the 9/11 attacks, DTCC was still able to settle that same day, a few hours later than normal. The majority of the work was done at the Brooklyn site (pictured), which was set up as the firm’s backup site following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
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