54. Auction institutions and market-integrity runtime

Live bids on vehicle identities combine social reach, high-value assets, insider relationships, automated agents, external payments, and potentially regulated transfer. Market integrity therefore requires an operator mandate, preserved bids, private signals, independent review, serialized halts, appeal, and settlement suspension.

#54.1 Auction-operator mandate

AuctionOperatorMandate binds operator principal, auction selectors, permitted and prohibited functions, separation rules, locked rule sets, valid interval, mandate epoch, and status. The operator cannot change admitted bids, choose a reserve after opening, bypass seller authority, or redefine settlement terms outside the locked auction stream.

#54.2 Participant and related-party assertions

MarketPartyRelationshipAssertion records party references, relationship class, source evidence, interval, confidence/limitations, and state. Beneficial-owner, controller, household, employer, sponsor, agent, seller-controlled, and coordinated-party claims are attributed evidence. Missing relationship evidence is not proof of independence.

#54.3 Integrity signals and surveillance

MarketIntegritySignal names auction/market, subject parties and bids, signal kinds, detector/version, input receipts, feature digest, optional score, uncertainty, generation time, and an explicit prohibition on automatic adverse action. Shared networks, devices, timing patterns, repeated increments, funding sources, identity links, or content campaigns are signals—not proof of collusion or shill bidding.

#54.4 Integrity case and decision

Signals may open a confidential case. MarketIntegrityDecision binds reviewer, authority, policy lock, signals, evidence, exact scopes, outcome, reasons, effective interval, and appeal. Outcomes include NO_ACTION, MONITOR, REQUIRE_REVIEW, REJECT_NEW_BIDS, EXCLUDE_BID, PAUSE_AUCTION, CANCEL_AND_RELIST, RESTRICT_PARTICIPANT, SUSPEND_SETTLEMENT, and EXTERNAL_REFERRAL.

#54.5 Serialized auction halt and release

MarketHalt references auction stream head and authority decision, pause policy, request/activation times, close-clock disposition, notices, release decision, and state. Activation and release serialize against bid admission and close. A halt cannot create, edit, delete, or reorder a bid. Publisher/feed delay never substitutes for the authoritative auction state.

#54.6 Bid exclusion, appeal, and settlement suspension

Bid exclusion is a decision over eligibility, not mutation of the admission receipt. Appeals append through the case runtime. Evidence arriving after close preserves the close result while settlement may suspend. Any later confirmed outcome is expressed through explicit eligibility, close, compensation, refund, transfer, and accounting records.