Nuveen’s Bond-Market Power Misused, Preston Hollow Founder Says

Nuveen LLC’s role as one of the biggest players in the U.S. municipal-bond market gave the company “unfettered power’’ to strong-arm banks into blackballing rival Preston Hollow Capital LLC, the smaller firm’s founder said.

Jim Thompson, who founded Preston Hollow in 2014, urged a judge at the end of a trial Tuesday to find Nuveen wrongfully schemed with banks’ bond traders to freeze the Texas-based firm out of the high-yield market and stifle competition.

“Over the years, they’ve just done what they want,’’ Thompson, who is also Preston Hollow’s chief executive officer, told Delaware Chancery Court Judge Sam ...