10k filed for securing about $11 million loan and note and the terms:
NORTHWEST BIOTHERAPEUTICS INC (Form: 8-K, Received: 05/02/2024 16:40:10)
Also the 7 defendants market makers filed their joint MTD:
@hoffmann6383
Defendants’ Joint Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss Second Amended Complaint (“MTD”)
$NWBO
Yesterday the Defendant Market Makers in the NWBO spoofing case filed their MTD NWBO's Second Amended Complaint.
The Case: Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc v. Canaccord Genuity LLC, 1:22-cv-10185, (S.D.N.Y.)
Docket:
https://courtlistener.com/docket/66579590/northwest-biotherapeutics-inc-v-canaccord-genuity-llc/
In this post I'll also be making references to the Phunware case, which can be found here:
https://courtlistener.com/docket/67634609/phunware-inc-v-ubs-securities-llc/
Before going into the newly filed MTD, lets see what got us here.
Recall the Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) adopted in full by Judge Woods. The R&R stated, in relevant part:
“Accordingly, the Court finds that NWBO has sufficiently alleged loss causation based on the temporal proximity between the spoofing and stock sales in the case of the 30 asterisked transactions in the chart in Paragraph 289, provided it submits an amended complaint adequately explaining how the sales prices were “formulaically derived” from the relevant closing prices, but that NWBO has not otherwise adequately pled loss causation under this theory.” (emphasis added)
The Court asked for one thing: a formulaic connection between sales prices and closing prices on days where spoofing occurred within one hour of close.
NWBO provided the formulaic connection in their Second Amended Complaint.
Did Defendants address this formulaic connection?
Defendants did not address the formulaic connection provided by NWBO until page 22 of their 25 page MTD. One single page in the 25-page MTD is directly relevant to the Judge’s findings.
Instead, Defendants spend nearly their entire MTD attacking points already decided in the R&R. Defendants want to redefine what the Court determined to be relevant spoofing periods. The Court looked at spoofing episodes within an hour of market close and the Defendants state they should have only looked at spoofing episodes within seconds, or milliseconds, of market close. Further, the Defendants went on to state that even if we consider spoofing episodes within an hour of close, the Court got it wrong in considering the 30 asterisked transactions as spoofing.
It's important to understand that the MTD is full of recycled arguments, arguments irrelevant at the MTD stage, and arguments that have already been decided in the R&R. Page 22 is the most relevant portion of the MTD. It directly addresses what the Judge deemed to be the only shortcoming of NWBO's First Amended Complaint.
In this post I’ll start with a short summary of Defendants’ MTD. Next, I’ll provide a long summary of the arguments found within Defendants’ MTD. Defendants largely argue NWBO failed to plead loss causation under the (1) “temporal proximity” theory and NWBO failed to plead loss causation under the (2) “long-term” negative price impact theory.
As part of the long summary I’ll touch on a few additional arguments Defendants’ briefly make in their attempt to dismiss NWBO’s Second Amended Complaint.
SHORT SUMMARY
Defendants’ MTD primarily rests on an alleged contradiction found in NWBO’s Second Amended Complaint. The alleged contradiction:
“Ultimately, NWBO’s loss causation allegations rest on an irreconcilable contradiction: that the market rapidly assimilated information and corrected artificial prices (when that suits NWBO’s scienter and reliance allegations) but somehow also left manipulated prices uncorrected for hours or days after the spoof orders were cancelled (when that suits NWBO’s loss causation allegations)."
Defendants’ argument relies heavily on the Phunware case.
The Court in Phunware stated, in relevant part:
“This is insufficient to establish harm from Defendant’s activity, because the Complaint does not sufficiently plead that the immediate price impact of spoofing lasts for almost two hours.…the Complaint seems to point in the opposite direction: when describing two of the example episodes of spoofing, Defendant is said to have “convert[ed] profits from its spoofing activity to cash” by selling shares only seconds later, suggesting a much shorter rebound period.”
The Court in Phunware went on to state:
“However, Plaintiff may seek leave to amend if it has a good faith basis to plead loss causation in accordance with the holdings given above.”
The defendant in Phunware, UBS Securities, LLC, opposed Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint by stating, in part:
“The PAC fails to plead loss causation as required. The fundamental and unavoidable problem with Plaintiff’s position is that it is saying two contradictory things at the same time: (1) it alleges that the share price almost immediately rebounded after the alleged spoofing incidents, in order to show that UBS profited from its supposed scheme by quickly selling Phunware shares at the rebounded share price; and (2) it also alleges that price declines persisted for months, in order to claim that all of Plaintiff’s sales over a two-year period were made at prices that were artificially depressed by the alleged spoofing scheme. These conflicting factual allegations cannot both be true, and should not be credited.”
Laura Posner, on behalf of the Plaintiff, Phunware, stated there was no contradiction because there was only a partial reversion of the share price after spoofing. This means Defendant can both profit from a spoof and the share price can remain artificially depressed for minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Posner stated, in part:
“Based on detailed quantitative analysis, the Amended Complaint also pleads how, following the immediate price decline caused by Defendant’s spoofing, Phunware’s share price partially reverts, providing Defendant an opportunity to profit from its purchases, including its Executing Purchases, at artificially depressed prices. ¶125. Specifically, the Amended Complaint shows how between 4 and 7 days after Spoofing Episodes, Phunware’s stock partially reverts. Following the partial reversion, however, this quantitative analysis shows that Phunware’s share price then continues to decline, ultimately gradually stabilizing between 20 and 60 days after Spoofing Episodes at a still artificially depressed price.”
I believe we would see a similar response in the NWBO case as we saw in Phunware.
LONG SUMMARY
1⃣ Defendants’ Allege NWBO Failed to Plead Loss Causation Under the Temporal Proximity Theory
“The SAC should be dismissed because it does not allege spoofing close enough in time to the close on any “Pricing Date” used to determine NWBO’s sale price. “
“In an efficient market, the alleged spoofing would cause mispricing for seconds at most, not the hours or days NWBO claims."
"No court has ever found spoofing’s impact lasts more than seconds, let alone an hour."
"In 17 of 31 (55%) of the “last hour” Spoofing Episodes and 14 of 16 (88%) of the “example” episodes, NWBO specifically alleges price reversion to or above the pre-spoofing level before the close. Rapid reversions within seconds or minutes clearly “point in the opposite direction” of an inference that spoofing’s effects lasted an entire hour."
"As Judge Ho explained, where a defendant allegedly “‘convert[ed] profits from its spoofing activity to cash’ by selling shares only seconds” after its “Executing Purchase,” the plaintiff failed to “sufficiently plead that the immediate price impact of spoofing” lasted until its sale of stock two hours later. Phunware, 2024 WL 1465244, at *7."
2⃣ Defendants’ Allege NWBO Failed to Plead Loss Causation Under the Long-Term Price Impact Theory
"The SAC is also replete with examples of dramatic price increases on days with alleged spoofing, refuting any “cumulative effect.” For example, on October 12, 2020, a day with 28 alleged Spoofing Episodes, NWBO’s “Best Offer” rose 19%, from $0.91 to $1.08.23 To the extent NWBO’s stock price declined at times, the far more plausible explanations are NWBO’s mismanagement, product failures, securities violations, and dilutive share issuances."
"NWBO’s “partial reversion” theory posits that after each alleged Spoofing Episode, prices rebounded incompletely, with some lingering depressive effects. ¶ 312. NWBO never explains why this would be, relying instead on an unexplained chart supposedly showing “the average price impact of Spoofing Episodes over the minutes following each Spoofing Episode… the “partial reversion” theory and chart cannot be reconciled with the SAC, which alleges that 65% of the Spoofing Episodes involved a “Next Sale” at or above the pre-spoofing price before market close.”"
"NWBO’s reliance on the Milgrom Report only underscores the deficiency of its pleading…As this Court explained, the Milgrom Report does not concern spoofing…"
Defendants allege there was no spoofing within the last hour of market close
Contrary to the R&R finding 30 spoofing episodes within the last hour before market close, Defendants allege no such spoofing occurred within the last hour of market close:
“...the SAC does not identify a single viable Spoofing Episode in the final hour of a Pricing Date that actually impacted the closing price, and NWBO thus cannot establish loss.”
Defendants allege NWBO’s formulaic connections are insufficient
I believe this to be the most relevant section of the MTD that directly addresses Judge Woods findings.
“The purported sale “formulas” provided in the SAC do not plausibly connect NWBO’s sale prices to the purported spoofing.”
I do not find these arguments convincing. There is a reason we don't find this section until page 22 of 25.
Defendants allege no single spoofing episode satisfies all the elements of a market manipulation claim
“…a fatal defect in NWBO’s claims is the complete absence of even a single episode that satisfies all elements of a market manipulation claim.”
Defendants allege NWBO’s claims under loss causation undermine those of reliance and scienter
“NWBO “may not at the same time presume an efficient market to prove reliance and an inefficient market to prove loss causation,”…”
ADDITIONAL INTERESTING POINTS
iHub
"First, the iHub posts are untethered from any well-pled facts about the alleged spoofing or price impact… Second, NWBO’s suggestion that positive iHub posts reliably evidence “investor enthusiasm” ignores its own pleading, which highlights how such posts are rife with “false” and “misleading” information… Finally, NWBO’s purported sentiment analysis methodology is junk science. NWBO allegedly downloaded over 235,000 iHub posts and fed them into a canned “dictionary” of words deemed positive or negative in SEC filings decades ago."
May 10th
"NWBO’s 78% decline on May 10, 2022 is not to the contrary, as all news that day was negative. See supra at 4 & n.5; see also In re Flag Telecom Holdings, Ltd. Sec. Litig., 574 F.3d 29, 36 (2nd Cir. 2009) (plaintiffs must disaggregate losses “caused by … firm-specific facts, conditions, or other events”)."
"For example, NWBO alleges that on May 10, 2022, “the market learned excellent news” regarding NWBO’s clinical trial, which “should have caused NWBO’s share price to increase, absent manipulation.” ¶ 73. However, all contemporaneous reporting on this trial was negative, R&R at 27—such as that NWBO’s product “perform[ed] worse than a placebo,” Ex. 3, May 10, 2022 StatNews article. The SAC also omits that, on the morning of May 10, NWBO publicly disclosed unusually heavy losses. See Ex. 4, NWBO Form 10-Q for the Quarter Ended March 31, 2022."
THOUGHTS
This filing is replete with recycled arguments, conclusory statements without cites, and arguments irrelevant for the MTD stage. As pointed out earlier, only one page in the MTD addresses Judge Woods' finding of a single shortcoming in the First Amended Complaint. What we're seeing here is a last minute desperate attempt by Defendant Market Makers to end every single spoofing case at the motion to dismiss stage.
Under Defendants’ position that spoofing effects last seconds and reverts to the pre-spoof price, there will never be any damages to the underlying company unless said company sold shares (or priced shares) within seconds, or milliseconds, of spoofing. Thus, potential plaintiffs in a civil spoofing case will never be able to show any loss. This would be fatal to nearly every civil spoofing case.
Defendants have to bring this argument, especially when considering the potential civil liability defendant market makers face.
Recall, Defendant Market Makers consider their behavior to be "bedrock market making activity" done in "virtually every stock in every trading venue."
"This is bedrock market-making activity that the Securities and Exchange Commission has explained is an “indispensable part of an efficient and liquid market.” Yet NWBO’s contrived theory would convert routine, regulated market making in virtually every stock in every trading venue across the country into securities fraud, flooding the courts with frivolous copycat lawsuits attempting to end-run the PSLRA, potentially upending the entire U.S. equity market system." (emphasis added)
Judge Woods asked NWBO for the formulaic connection. NWBO provided it. The case moves on.
MTD Briefing Timeline
May 31, 2024: NWBO's opposition
June 14, 2024: Defendant's reply