Citadel Securities, Virtu Must Face Biotech Stock Spoof Suit (1)

Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc. can proceed with claims against seven firms including Citadel Securities and Virtu Americas LLC for depressing the company’s stock price through false sale orders, a federal court ruled.

The company adequately supported its allegations that the spoofing trades caused some of its losses from selling shares, but not all of them, Judge Gregory H. Woods said in an opinion docketed Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Bethesda, Md.-based Northwest, which develops cancer-treating vaccines, said the market-making firms made “at least hundreds of millions” of dollars from late 2017 to mid-2022 ...