A bunch of merchants suing Robinhood for the buying and selling restrictions imposed in January 2021 have renewed their efforts to safe class certification.
On December 13, 2023, Blue Laine-Beveridge, Abraham Huacuja, Ava Bernard, Brendan Clarke, Brian Harbison, Cecilia Rivas, Doi Nguyen, Joseph Gurney, Marcel Poirier, Sandy Ng, Santiago Gil Bohórquez, and Thomas Money moved the Florida Southern District Courtroom for an order setting a schedule for briefing a renewed movement for sophistication certification, and for submitting skilled stories in reference to the briefing of that movement.
The plaintiffs intend to file a renewed movement for sophistication certification to deal with the deficiencies recognized by the Courtroom in its November 13, 2023 Order denying class certification with out prejudice.
Particularly, the merchants intend to suggest and tackle the applicability of a “modified fraud-on-the-market presumption”. Plaintiffs intend to introduce an extra skilled report in reference to this renewed movement to deal with factual issues related to the modified presumption, and intend to depend on paperwork that Plaintiffs acquired in discovery subsequent to Plaintiffs’ submitting of the preliminary class certification movement.
This case entails allegations of market manipulation by Robinhood arising from its transaction restrictions in early 2021 following the “meme inventory” brief squeeze. Particularly, in January 2021, market volatility prompted regulators to boost deposit necessities for clearing brokers, together with Robinhood, to make sure they may cowl the prices of unexecuted trades.
Robinhood couldn’t afford the brand new deposit necessities and sought one other strategy to appease regulators. It succeeded after regulators agreed to waive the deposit necessities — as long as Robinhood restricted its prospects’ entry to sure shares.
Robinhood blamed market volatility for its restrictions and vehemently denied any bother with its personal liquidity. Plaintiffs allege Robinhood manipulated the market when it imposed such restrictions, accompanied by “half-truths” about market volatility whereas conveniently omitting any point out of liquidity points.
On November 13, 2023, the Courtroom denied the primary movement for sophistication certification. Again then, the Choose famous that the plaintiffs exhibit in most respects that the case and their representatives are ample for sophistication remedy. Nonetheless, they did not persuade the Courtroom that individualized reliance points is not going to predominate.
