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The retail investors who brought the lawsuit were dismissed by the federal court in Miami.
The evidence of a conspiracy between market-maker Citadel Securities, trading app Robinhood, and others, to cause shares of meme stocks like GameStop to decline on January 28 was not sufficient, according to the court.
The retail investors who are suing the companies submitted new evidence in their complaint that showed conversations between Citadel Securities and Robinhood in the days leading up to the trading halt.
According to the lawsuit, high level employees of Citadel Securities and Robinhood had a lot of communication.
The District Court of Southern Florida did not agree with those conversations.
Chief US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga wrote that the emails may be somewhat suspicious. The Court thinks that a few vague and ambiguous emails between two firms in an otherwise lawful, ongoing business relationship is enough toudge claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.
The court agreed that there was no basis for the conspiracy theories and dismissed the case, according to a Citadel Securities spokesman.
Lawyers representing retail investors did not respond to Insider's request for comment. Retail investors have until December 20 to amend their complaint.
The #Citadel Scandal trended on the social networking site after the conversations were revealed.
The company wrote that "Internet conspiracies and Twitter mobs try to ignore the facts, but the fact is that Citadel Securities was the pre-eminent market maker to the retail brokerage community in January 2021."
In addition to lawsuits brought by retail investors, the January trading halt prompted a report from the US Securities and Exchange Commission as well as Congressional hearings in which the CEO of the company testified. Round-the-clock phone support was added to the platform, as well asnixing a popular confetti feature.
Business Insider has an original article.
