Certificate Clearing Corporation

1992 The Beginning In the summer of 1992, a Chicago Board Options Exchange market-maker named James Tharin went on the Injured Reserve List. This was in the days of open outcry trading, and a packed trading pit was not the best place to have a broken leg. Fortunately, Jim was not sidelined for long. A lawyer friend called him with a problem: there was a proposed settlement in the BMW M5 Litigation where the class members would receive discount coupons on future BMW purchases. Might Jim have an idea for how to create a market for such coupons? Jim not only managed to create a market in this case, but built a company initially dedicated to creating markets in class action coupon settlements. Over the next two decades, Certificate Clearing Corporation (CCC) created markets in 18 different class action settlements and helped claimants recover close to $230 million, very often by helping them to sell their coupons and realize cash where otherwise they would have received nothing.