from Hacker News

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Robinhood

by po1nter on 1/28/21, 7:39 PM with 542 comments

  • by dang on 1/28/21, 8:33 PM

    For pointers to other vertices of this story graph, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25933543.

    The earlier thread about class action is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25945447. Not sure if these are the same class action or just the same class action class.

    The current thread is paginated like all the other big threads. If you want to see all the comments you'll need to click through the More links at the bottom, or like this:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947814&p=2

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947814&p=3

    (and so on)

  • by nindalf on 1/28/21, 10:14 PM

    This lawsuit will go nowhere. At best a tiny settlement after years of litigation. Congress will have a few hearings for show, so reps can get face time and claim to be "for the people". SEC will wag their finger, might even levy a few hundred thousand in fines.

    Citadel and gang operate this casino. If they think they're losing, they change the rules so they aren't.

    What it tells me is that they're getting increasingly desperate if they're willing to brazenly manipulate the market like this. Seems like they didn't close out their short position, like they claimed they had 2 days ago. It'd be interesting to see if the casino wins this game.

  • by sbelskie on 1/28/21, 10:15 PM

    “ANTHONY DENIER: Well, it wasn't our choice. Our clearing firm gave us a call and said we're going to have to stop allowing new opening positions in the three names, AMC, GME, and KOSS. Highly volatile, and what happens is this is not a political decision. And unfortunately, it got political. I think, you know, I think it was once said that don't let any good crisis go to waste. And that's clearly what's happening here.

    And we're seeing politicians jump on the bandwagon so they can get-- so they can start trending on Twitter. But in reality, what's going on is that there is a two-day settlement between if you buy the stock today, those brokerage firms that you bought that stock on have to fund that trade with the clearing central house called DTC for two whole days. And because of the volatility of stocks, DTC has made the cost of the collateral of the two-day holding period extremely expensive.“[1] from the CEO of Webull.

    [1]- https://finance.yahoo.com/video/heres-why-robinhood-restrict...

    Edit: Non amp link.

  • by mcv on 1/28/21, 8:13 PM

    From what I understand Melvin Capital, one of the biggest short-sellers that got in trouble, is owned by Citadel, which is also Robinhood's largest customer (buying user data, of all things) and maybe partial owner. I'm no lawyer, but to me it sounds like that might be a conflict of interests.

    By preventing people from buying shares, the short-sellers have less competition to buy the available shares, and will have an easier time getting them, while paying less for them. Robinhood seems to be manipulating the market to make it easier for Melvin Capital to cut their substantial losses.

  • by jcranmer on 1/28/21, 8:18 PM

    I've scanned the lawsuit (https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.553175...). I'm not a lawyer, but my first reading of it is that this is not a strong lawsuit.

    The complaint is largely framed around "Robinhood prevented us from executing trades against GME, and it is contractually required to execute all trades." However, the actual contract explicitly says the opposite: Robinhood can choose to limit execution at its own discretion. So in order to win, plaintiffs basically have to get the relevant clauses of the contract to be ruled illegal. The extent to which this is possible is dependent on securities law which I am very unqualified to comment on, although I will note that the complaint does at least include some relevant allegations to what they need to do, which is better than other lawsuits I've seen (oh hi Parler).

  • by whitepaint on 1/28/21, 8:13 PM

    Can someone, who has expertise in this field, explain what the hell happened? How on earth is it possible that all brokers at the same time disallowed to buy certain stocks? Who is responsible for this? The SEC, the FED, the White House, or..? Who gave the call? Who has that much power?

  • by slg on 1/28/21, 8:02 PM

    I'm not sure disallowing buying this stock is worthy of a lawsuit. However forcibly closing people's positions who already are long on GME like some are reporting on Twitter[1] certainly seems like a great reason to be sued.

    [1] - https://twitter.com/joemccann/status/1354859879337320452

  • by totaldude87 on 1/28/21, 8:28 PM

    Allowing a stock to become sell only will trigger a sell off and this WILL help the short sellers cover ( may be with reduced loss)..

    Just allowing selling of a stock makes, free markets a joke.

    I am seeing analogies like will apple store sell me a pixel 3a etc. This is not a product robinhood buys or sells , they make my transaction with a bigger shark (Citadel) who is in bed with the hedge fund who shorted ~112% of outstanding shares. When a group of people took advantage and created a squeeze, they block their ability to buy more to strengthen their squeeze.

  • by tqi on 1/28/21, 10:34 PM

    It's funny that lawmakers so mad about Robinhood putting the brakes on this[1], when all I had been reading prior to this year how Robinhood was recklessly gamifying investing[2]. Some people are absolutely going to lose their homes / retirement savings at the end of all this. I have no doubt they would have faced lawsuits and calls for regulation had they done nothing.

    [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-cruz-ocasio-cortez-... [2]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/massachusetts-sec-o-commonwe...

  • by paulpan on 1/28/21, 10:31 PM

    Maybe stating the obvious - doesn't this torpedo Robinhood's plans to IPO sometime this year?

    The backlash seems so severe that I'm very curious about the rationale behind backroom decisions made that led to all this.

  • by liuliu on 1/28/21, 10:20 PM

    They drew extra credit line today, and saying they cannot keep up with the capital obligations. It seems like they are insolvent for a moment today, not sure what's their current state of affairs.

    RH requires much more SEC scrutiny really. A brokerage cannot go broke by facilitating trades, it supposes to be a risk-free business.

  • by IG_Semmelweiss on 1/28/21, 10:29 PM

    I have seen some information floating around stating that RH is not responsible for the trade clearing in the RH platform.

    Robinhood has in effect cleared all its trades since 2018 as you can see based on their own page.

    https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/common-tax-ques...

  • by hehehaha on 1/28/21, 10:19 PM

    This is so misguided. Why did people think they can put on a 8 sigma short squeeze on Robinhood of all platforms? That said this has gone mainstream and the ramification will be significant across the board from retail options to overall regulation on discount brokers to order flow sale. Net effect is likely higher cost of trading for everyone.

  • by Thaxll on 1/28/21, 10:33 PM

    The system looks very fragile when something like that happens, and by being fragile it makes the stock going down which in return lot of people are loosing money.

    They should have stop trading completely on those stock instead they stopped some people / service to purchase it but you can still sell, it's insane.

  • by Triv888 on 1/28/21, 10:14 PM

    Inside of about 3 hours, Alpaca, went from blocking sales of some stocks to allowing sales of the same stocks:

    AMC - AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

    BB - BlackBerry Ltd.

    EXPR - Express, Inc.

    GME - GameStop Corp.

    KOSS - Koss Corporation

    NAKD - Naked Brand Groups Ltd

    NOK - Nokia Oyj

    I guess they don't want to get sued (the biggest fear of most companies)

  • by Nacdor on 1/28/21, 10:09 PM

    How will this lawsuit get around the binding arbitration clause in their customer agreement?

    https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/Customer%20...

  • by throwaway69123 on 1/28/21, 10:05 PM

    Is it true the company that owns Robinhood also has a huge short exposure to GME?

  • by po1nter on 1/28/21, 10:06 PM

  • by trevortheblack on 1/28/21, 10:18 PM

    Propose shifting the article to the suit itself:

    https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.553175...

  • by hnrodey on 1/28/21, 10:14 PM

    January 28th, 2021: we witnessed the most corrupt financial act of our lifetime as a one-sided stock purchasing restriction was placed on MILLIONS of people across the United States in the most critical time of “financial battle”.

  • by reilly3000 on 1/28/21, 8:30 PM

    I'm very much with the WSB folks, but I have a theory about the trading halt that may be more innocent. RH's exposure to margin ensures that when GME inevitably plummets, they aren't on the hook for giant liability. They may behave the same way for any stock that broke circuit breakers that fast, and some of it legit is to protect the interests of their retail investors.

    That said, for Robinhood's business model, you're the product, not the investor. Outside of reputational damage they DGAF about the outcomes of individual investors as long as they don't have skin in the game.

  • by artorg on 1/28/21, 10:22 PM

    I think the suitability standard applies here, and will probably be the main defense for the brokers.

    https://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionaleducation/...

    https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/key-topics/suitability

  • by janmo on 1/28/21, 8:17 PM

    What did you expect? When it is free you are the product. Robinhood uses pay for order flow, a system invented by Bernie Madoof to generate revenue. It is really time to leave this broker.

  • by curryst on 1/28/21, 8:09 PM

    Does anyone know why Robinhood would block the symbols? If the SEC determines some manipulation happened, does Robinhood bear some liability?

    I'm not alleging a conspiracy or anything, it just seems odd to me that this kind of action comes preemptively from a broker. I would have expected the brokers to do nothing until the SEC indicates something one way or another, or for nothing to change if the SEC doesn't take a position either way.

    I feel like there's some part of this I'm missing.

  • by paulpauper on 1/28/21, 10:53 PM

    It is already going up a lot in AH. It will be harder to show damages if this gets to $500 again. Also the halt was in the premarket, but GME surged at the open to new highs, until falling in half in mid-morning. So this further weakens the narrative and causality that Robinhood's actions caused robothood customers to lose money. The stock tanked maybe because it was just simply overbought, regardless of Robinhood's doing.

  • by joering2 on 1/28/21, 8:55 PM

    wow, that didn't take long so I was wrong about TV ads.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25943676

    Next prediction: obviously Robinhood can kiss their IPO goodbye. They are hated by both sides now - bankers and investors. Frankly, I hope they will go under, get shut down but not before 20 AG and DOJ/SEC takes them to bleachers.

  • by willyg123 on 1/28/21, 11:03 PM

    Too bad every user signed an arbitration agreement which prevents class actions from moving forward https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/Customer%20...

  • by totaldude87 on 1/28/21, 9:25 PM

    Also if Robinhood wins this, theoretically they can do the same to $AAPL, $MSFT, $AMZN , now how does the uber rich , fund managers, union funds, 401k etc etc would react? where does this stop.

    Its either a free trade market , or its not!

  • by MrPatan on 1/28/21, 10:32 PM

    How many Dexes for company shares are being built right now? Which company will be the first one to get listed in one of those? When will it happen?

  • by foxfired on 1/28/21, 8:41 PM

    Even e-trade is blocking purchase orders:

    https://imgur.com/a/iHqwEyv

  • by ineedasername on 1/28/21, 9:39 PM

    In addition to the class relief, they're also asking for an immediate injunction to reinstate GME. Good.

  • by totaldude87 on 1/28/21, 9:22 PM

    all you need to prove is , how these things map together w.r.t GME

    1) transactions between Robinhood and Citadel (even some % of their GME trades would have gone to Citadel) 2) The deal between hedge fund and citadel

    If you can prove that its because of #1 and #2 , RobinHood arrived at this decision, its game over?

    or is it?

  • by cccc4all on 1/28/21, 10:24 PM

    Robinhood is done as company, no matter what happens with the lawsuit. They had one job, trade stocks, and they refused to do it at the most critical time under very shady circumstances. How can anyone trust this company with their financial future after today?

  • by hntrader on 1/28/21, 10:27 PM

    What about all the other retail brokerages that did the same thing?

  • by orestarod on 1/29/21, 2:58 AM

    The irony of the company's name just occurred to me.

  • by hankchinaski on 1/28/21, 10:31 PM

    this increasingly looks like an episode of "billions"

  • by avipars on 1/28/21, 8:57 PM

    How could I join?

  • by logicslave on 1/28/21, 8:10 PM

    Populism! Its popping up in every corner of American life

  • by franklampard on 1/28/21, 10:07 PM

    well deserved

  • by RivieraKid on 1/28/21, 10:29 PM

    I think I'm the only guy on the internet who's rooting for the short-sellers.

  • by Traster on 1/28/21, 10:34 PM

    To be honest, the more I'm watching this, the more it seems like the same behaviour we saw from the Trump supporters in the build up to 6th Jan. Baseless accusations, incredible emotive language, fact-free discourse and massive ramp up in rhetoric. Progressively wilder accusations with no proof. They don't seem to understand that mass hysteria actually is a reason for a trading platform to bring in limits - especially when there's margin around, and its actually not that big a deal for a hedge fund to go bankrupt. The idea that the entirity of Wallstreet is co-ordinating to back up some hedge fund is... laughable. It's all very high tension, low information at the moment and that seems dangerous. What was the result of this ever going to be? A narrative of being screwed by wall street start to end.

  • by optimalsolver on 1/28/21, 8:01 PM

    Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols. Why is Robinhood being singled out?

    Also, considering 99.9% of people jumping on the bandwagon have absolutely no idea what they're doing, they'll probably thank RH down the road for preventing them from losing all their money.

  • by eric_b on 1/28/21, 10:28 PM

    Some of the complaints from Robinhood users ring of entitlement. They didn't know what they were doing or what rights they actually had. And certainly they must not have read the ToS where Robinhood is granted various terrible powers over their money and trading access.

    On the one hand it's great that anyone who wants it has access to the financial markets. But I mean, you should probably know what you're doing before you start speculating. Are people really going to make a moral issue out of not being able to sell their bad bets to a greater fool?

    It's like everyone wants access to swim with a dangerous group of man-eating sharks and then complains when they get bitten.