GameStop Short Seller Citron Research Exec Sued By US SEC

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is asking for disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil monetary penalties against GameStop short seller Andrew Left.

Fraudulent Activities of Andrew Left

According to a filing submitted in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the securities regulator separately sued the GameStop short seller and his firm, Citron Capital LLC. The lawsuit against them is for engaging in a $20 million multi-year scheme to defraud followers. Left allegedly published false and misleading statements regarding his supposed stock trading recommendations.

Also, the Boca Raton-based activist short seller allegedly used his public platform to illegally make profits to the tune of about $16 million. This profit came from manipulating stock market activity contrary to positions he presented to the public between 2018 to 2023. Precisely, the 54-years old man leveraged his Citron Research website as well as social media platforms to conduct these fraudulent activities.

Left convinced his audience about taking long or short positions in 23 companies including GameStop. He made them believe these position have shared consistency with his and Citron Research’s positions. It is worth noting that this pattern occurred about 23 times, based on SEC’s filing. All these time, Left intentionally turned to this approach with the sole aim of defrauding his victims.

The SEC noted that “Left bragged to colleagues that some of these statements [he made] were especially effective at inducing retail investors to trade based on his recommendations and said that it was like taking ‘candy from a baby,’ ”

Citron Research and GameStop

Noteworthy, GameStop is one of the companies Citron has short position history with. Citron previously suffered a heavy squeeze during the GameStop rally in 2021 but began rebuilding its position earlier this year. In the first week of June, Citron Research initiated a new short position against GameStop. This coincided with when the video-game retailer’s stock price surged by as much as 75%.

By the next week, Citron announced the removal of the shares from GME shares from its short selling position, and stated on X “Citron is no longer short GME.” Moreso, it claimed that the decision precipitated from potential dilution caused by GameStop’s recent share issuance. Since that time till now, GameStop shares GME has seen fluctuations.

At press time, GME traded at $24.44, corresponding with a 1.96% increase within the last 24 hours.

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