Genius Group is asking for at least $250 million. The education company, listed on NYSE American as GNS, filed a class action on 14 November 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Its targets are Citadel Securities and Virtu Americas.
The complaint accuses both firms of running a long manipulation scheme against Genius Group shares, built on spoofing and naked short selling. It cites Section 10(b), Sections 9(a)(2) and 9(e), and Section 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The allegations are the company’s own and have not been tested in court. Genius Group’s announcement carried no response from either defendant.
What the complaint alleges
Spoofing means placing buy or sell orders and cancelling them with no real intent to fill them. The aim is to give other traders a false read on supply, demand or volatility, and so push the price.
Genius Group says the pattern ran for at least three years, from 12 April 2022 to 30 May 2025. On 98% of trading days in that window, the complaint says, the defendants entered spoofing trades, sometimes dozens and sometimes thousands in a single day, and cancelled them within milliseconds.
The filing describes a repeated sequence. The defendants allegedly built large short positions off-exchange over a few trading days, then flooded the market with baiting orders cancelled within 100 milliseconds. Prices fell. Less than a minute after the baiting orders went in, the complaint says, they sold significant volumes of Genius stock short, again off-exchange.
The company also alleges naked short selling, meaning short sales not backed by existing inventory. Big drops in the share price, it says, coincided with large spikes in evidence of that activity.
Who is suing, and for whom
The action is brought for the company and for every investor who sold Genius Group stock at what it calls artificially deflated prices. Genius Group will ask the court to name it lead plaintiff so it can run the case.
Chief executive Roger James Hamilton called the filing “an important milestone for the company in what has been a long, multi-year fight to protect the company and its shareholders.” He also said that “multiple brokers have taken away the buy button on Genius shares while leaving the sell button,” and gave no explanation for why, in his words, they were targeting the company.
The company reminded shareholders of a 28 November 2025 record date for moving shares through the Direct Registration System to its transfer agent, VStock. Shares transferred by then qualify for its Bitcoin Loyalty Payment program, which it says is meant to cut the number of shares available to short sellers.
