In the aftermath of the run-up in the price of Gamestop (GME) Robinhood removed GME from its trading platform. Yes, Robinhood simply removed a publicly traded security from its platform, preventing its users from buying, and presumably selling, the security.
While Robinhood claims that it has the right to do so in its customer agreement, that may not be the case. Many commentators are claiming that Robinhood has the right to reject orders, which is certainly true – depending on the reason. And the reason for rejecting orders typically relates to the customer or the order itself.
There is there is nothing in Robinhood’s customer that permits it to remove a publicly traded security from its platform, preventing customers from purchasing that security.
Robinhood will undoubtedly attempt to rely on this sentence in the customer agreement:
I understand Robinhood may at any time, in its sole discretion and without prior notice to Me, prohibit or restrict My ability to trade securities.
It is doubtful that this provision, which is contained in a paragraph titled “Purchases” and discusses the customer’s obligation to pay for stock purchases, will support a claim that it can be used by the firm to prevent ALL customers from purchasing a particular security.
In addition, Robinhood defines the words “My” and “Me” in the agreement to refer to the owner of the account in question. It does not give Robinhood the authority to prevent all customers from trading a particular security.
Another interesting point is that Robinhood did not stop trading because of some altruistic motive, it did so to protect its own profits, according to BloombergLaw. According to Bloomberglaw, Robinhood Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said that the company’s financial requirements, such as deposits to clearing houses, increase when there’s a lot of volatility in the market, so “to protect the firm and to protect our customers we temporarily disabled buying in these securities.”
Mark Astarita is a nationally recognized securities attorney, who represents investors, financial professionals and firms in securities litigation, arbitration and regulatory matters, including SEC and FINRA investigations and enforcement proceedings.
He is a partner in the national securities law firm Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC, and the founder of The Securities Law Home Page - SECLaw.com, which was one of the first legal topic sites on the Internet. It went online in 1995 and is updated daily with news, commentary and securities law related links.