Article: ‘Does the punishment fit the crime?’

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‘Does the punishment fit the crime?’

Tatiana Walk-Morris, 14 April 2021

In 2018, William Thomas C. was caught with 18 pounds of cannabis a few days after returning home from vacation with his grandchildren. He was charged with cannabis trafficking and manufacturing or delivering more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, according to court records. Before then, William, better known as Tom, ran a family farm and a lawn care business in Bloomington, Illinois. Since Tom has been serving a nine-year sentence at Centralia Correctional Center, his sister Tara C. has managed his businesses and talks with him several times a week.

Tara, who asked for her last name to be withheld to preserve her career, said Tom suffered a terrible motorcycle accident several years ago and turned to marijuana to help with his pain management as an alternative to prescription medications. During Tom’s trial, his family had to sell assets to pay for his attorney’s fees. But following his conviction, Tara reached out to the Last Prisoner Project, a Denver-based nonprofit which advocates for the freedom and welfare of people imprisoned for cannabis convictions, to help free Tom. Continue reading “Article: ‘Does the punishment fit the crime?’”

Article: Melvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy

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Melvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy

Michelle Celarier, Institutional Investor, 22 March 2021

Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital, the hedge fund at the center of the GameStop trading frenzy in January, is a defendant in nine lawsuits by retail investors alleging a conspiracy to limit trading that caused them to lose money.

The hedge fund revealed the existence of the lawsuits in its annual ADV filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Melvin was famously short GameStop and lost more than 50 percent during January following a short squeeze orchestrated by a Reddit forum called WallStreetBets, whose members included retail investors in GameStop. As the stock soared, various online brokerages catering to those investors, including Robinhood, restricted buying shares of GameStop, among other stocks heavily shorted by Melvin.

Article: Mt. Gox CEO Fights Class In $400M Bitcoin Fraud Case

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Mt. Gox CEO Fights Class In $400M Bitcoin Fraud Case

Clark Mindock, 10 March 2021

The former CEO of defunct Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox doubled down on his opposition to class certification for customers of the service, saying a plan recently announced in Japan would better compensate them than U.S. litigation would.

Mark Karpeles asked an Illinois federal court Tuesday to weigh the impact of a plan created through a Japanese rehabilitation proceeding to return assets to Mt. Gox customers. The former CEO said that though the plan’s details are private, public estimates related to the Japanese plan indicate that former customers could potentially be compensated well through the deal and with much lower costs than proceeding with American litigation. Continue reading “Article: Mt. Gox CEO Fights Class In $400M Bitcoin Fraud Case”

Article: Green Plains sues ADM, alleging ethanol market manipulation

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Green Plains sues ADM, alleging ethanol market manipulation

P.J. Huffstutter, 05 July 2020

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Green Plains Inc, one of the biggest U.S. ethanol producers, sued Archer Daniels Midland Co on Tuesday, accusing the global grain trader of manipulating the price of the biofuel to profit from its positions in the derivatives market.

Green Plains filed the proposed class action with the U.S. District Court of Nebraska, where it also claimed that senior ADM officials knew of the alleged manipulation. ADM told Reuters in an email statement that the company does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. It follows reporting by Reuters that ADM’s ethanol selling had led traders to complain to S&P Global Platts, which provides benchmark pricing for the physical ethanol contract at different U.S. delivery points. Continue reading “Article: Green Plains sues ADM, alleging ethanol market manipulation”

Article: Naked Justice?

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Naked Justice?

Liz Moyer, 29 August 2006

Louisiana State Attorney General Charles Foti is trying to force UBS, the Wall Street investment bank, to turn over vast quantities of information on its trading, stock lending and other activities related to shares of software firm Sedona.

The Louisiana Department of Justice filed documents in a state court Tuesday to compel UBS to hand over the information in ten days.

The state is probing naked short-selling, which is the practice of selling shares short without borrowing them. It is an issue that has already been raised in reference to Sedona Sedona. in an ongoing civil lawsuit against a number of brokers and hedge funds and in a Securities and Exchange Commission federal court case filed in April in New York against one brokerage and several individuals. Continue reading “Article: Naked Justice?”

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