"Free market" doesn't mean "no government regulation". It means that the market responds purely to supply and demand. Government regulation can distort the response of supply and demand, but so do monopolies and lack of information parity between buyers and sellers. From what I've been reading here, the trade halts help prevent a situation where prices are effectively unknown because there are not enough buyers. Such a system is not a "free market" because information is not communicating between buyers and sellers. It sounds like the timeout helps people who want to buy stop panicking and discover what price they are willing to buy. Effectively it gives time for price information to get transmitted across the system. This actually helps restore free market. (Other government regulation, like trust-busting can also have this effect.)