„The halting of trading of these stocks was to protect institutional investment at the detriment of retail customers,“ Richard Joseph Gatz wrote in the suit filed Thursday in federal court.
A Naperville attorney on Thursday sued a California financial services company that runs a stock-trading app at the center of a controversy sparked by swarms of small investors pumping up the stock value of the video game retailer GameStop and other floundering companies in an effort to punish institutional short sellers. The lawsuit, filed by Richard Joseph Gatz in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeks an injunction against Robinhood Financial, which on Thursday restricted transactions of GameStop and other stocks Reddit users have feverishly been snapping up in a bid to stick it to Wall Street. Gatz states that he owns two options contracts for Blackberry stock, which is among the 13 companies targeted by Robinhood. However, according to Gatz, the firm has “continued to allow trading for institutional investors.” “On information and belief, the halting of trading of these stocks was to protect institutional investment at the detriment of retail customers,” he wrote. “Furthermore, this appears to be in lock-step with other securities trading platforms, such as Ally Financial, TD Ameritrade and potentially others.
