Genius Group says Citadel Securities and Virtu Americas handled as much as 85% of the over-the-counter trading in its shares. It also says they used that position to push the price down. The education technology company, listed on the NYSE, filed suit in federal court in Manhattan, according to InvestmentNews, which reported the case on November 27, 2025.
The complaint accuses the two firms of spoofing: placing large orders and cancelling them almost at once, so the market sees demand or supply that is not real. It calls the orders “Baiting Orders” and says each one was cancelled within 100 milliseconds. Other investors, the suit contends, read those flickers as real activity and sold.
The numbers in the filing
The period at issue runs from April 2022 to May 2025. The filing says spoofing showed up on 758 of 760 trading days, with more than 1.3 million manipulative orders placed and pulled.
One week is singled out. During the week of February 10, 2025, Citadel allegedly traded more than 23 million Genius shares off-exchange, nearly half the total volume, and Virtu traded close to 11 million. Short volume in the stock rose from 53% to over 61% that week. The share price fell 22%, and the complaint says the company had put out no major news.
The suit describes several earlier stretches that followed the same pattern: the firms building short positions, then a burst of spoofing, then a sharp drop. Genius Group argues the firms profited from those short positions while other shareholders took the losses.
Past run-ins with regulators
The complaint also points to earlier regulatory action against both firms, including SEC fines for supervision failures and abusive short selling.
These are allegations only. The firms had not responded in court when the report was published, and no finding of wrongdoing has been made.
