Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued civil investigative demands (CIDs) to 13 entities, including Robinhood and Citadel, that allegedly blocked trading by GameStop stockholders in connection with a suspension of stock trading and investments, a request to increase trading margin reserves for certain companies, and a suspension of chat platform activity.
Other names that were also issued CIDs include Discord, Robinhood Markets, Robinhood Securities, Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, TD Bank, E-Trade, WeBull Financial Public Holdings, M1 Holdings, Citadel Financial and Apex Clearing.
Attorney General Paxton said, “Wall Street firms cannot restrict public access to free markets and should not censor the discussion around free markets, especially for their own benefit. This apparent coordination between hedge funds, trading platforms and web servers to shut down threats to their market dominance is shockingly unprecedented and wrong. It reeks of corruption.”
“I hope these firms will come forward and work with these CIDs to clarify why stock purchases are being forcibly shut down and why even conversations around these stocks are being silenced.”
In addition to public statements and internal documents, the CIDs are requesting copies of all terms of service, policies related to content control and moderation, and communications between the platform and chat server moderators, including decisions to restrict, control or block access to Discord r/WallStreetBets servers.
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