More than a dozen plaintiffs are now part of a lawsuit seeking answers from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on their decision to withdraw No-Action Relief granted in 2014 allowing the popular election prediction market, PredictIt, to operate in the United States. 

The additional plaintiffs, many of whom reside in the Austin area served by US District Court for the Western District of Texas, are both investor plaintiffs - who hold event contracts that turn on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election - and academic plaintiffs - who rely on PredictIt's anonymized data for research purposes and as part of their teaching curriculum.

"These seven additional plaintiffs are representative of the tens of thousands of small investors in Texas and throughout the country who are harmed by the CFTC's precipitous and unexplained decision to close the PredictIt market," said David Mason, Aristotle General Counsel and former Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairman.

The amended complaint says in part: 

"This case challenges the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's decision arbitrarily, capriciously, and without legally required process to revoke its permission for the Market to operate and thereby to force the premature liquidation of dozens of contracts, damaging those who invest in the Market, scholars who study and teach from the data produced by the Market, and the entities servicing the Market.

…The Revocation's command to liquidate certain contracts by February 15, 2023, will cause a chaotic wind-down of the Market."

A motion for a preliminary injunction was filed on Sept. 30, 2022 to continue to allow trading in existing markets while the court decides the broader issues in the case. 

Aristotle is the contract service provider for the PredictIt Market, which has operated under No-Action Relief CFTC 14-130 since 2014. 

Requests for the full text of the lawsuit and other press inquiries should be directed to press@aristotle.com.

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