Eric Gibbs
A founding partner at the firm, Eric has negotiated groundbreaking settlements that resulted in reforms to business practices, and have favorably shaped the laws impacting plaintiffs’ legal rights.
Market manipulation generally refers to deliberate attempts to interfere with the market, usually as a way to reap profits by deceiving investors. Market manipulation undermines public confidence in the stock market and puts other investors at an unfair disadvantage.
Common Forms of Market Manipulation
Market manipulation occurs when individuals or companies:
- distort prices or trades to create a false demand for a security;
- make stock trades based on inside information that is not publicly available (insider trading);
- improperly limit the number of publicly available shares in a stock; or
- spread false or misleading information about a company (often through corporate disclosures).
Laws Against Market Manipulation
Market manipulation is illegal in the United States under both securities and antitrust laws.
Securities Laws
Securities laws and related SEC rules broadly prohibit fraud in the purchase and sale of securities, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Section 9, specifically makes it unlawful to manipulate security prices.
Antitrust Laws
Antitrust Laws such as the Sherman Act and the Commodity Exchange Act.
Violations of these laws can result in government investigations & disciplinary actions, as well as criminal charges and civil lawsuits by investors and others who were harmed.
Our Team
Dave Stein
David Stein represents clients in federal and state cases nationwide, ranging from securities and financial fraud class actions, to product liability, privacy, and data breach suits.
Michael Schrag
Michael Schrag has nearly 20 years of experience representing individual and small business plaintiffs in a broad range of complex class actions against large corporations.
Amanda Karl
Amanda represents employees, consumers, and sexual assault survivors in complex class action lawsuits nationwide. She also leads the firm’s Voting Rights Task Force.
SEC Whistleblowers
Gibbs Law Group encourages persons who know about possible securities violation to contact the firm. Under the SEC whistleblower laws promulgated under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, whistleblowers may be receive a reward of up to 30 percent of the recovery for information leading to a successful enforcement action by the SEC and are protected from employer retaliation. If you believe that you have information about a securities violation, please contact us.