Giddings v. Oanda Corp.
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:21-cv-05251
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Giddings v. Oanda Corp., Judge Broderick denied Giddings’s request to add a Commodity Exchange Act claim as futile and untimely.
The ruling affected Warren Matthew Giddings’s request to add a Commodity Exchange Act claim against Oanda Corp., Max F. Brauer, and the United States.
What happened
In Giddings v. Oanda Corp., Warren Matthew Giddings, who was representing himself, asked to add a claim under the Commodity Exchange Act against all defendants. He had already amended his complaint twice, and the court had warned that another amendment was unlikely.
The court found that the proposed claim could not succeed because Giddings alleged that Oanda Corp. mishandled his investment funds, while his allegations against Max F. Brauer and the United States concerned failures to respond to or investigate his complaints. The court said these allegations did not support the required elements of a market-price-manipulation claim. It also said the claim would be barred by the two-year deadline because Giddings alleged that the conduct had continued for about three years.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick denied the motion for leave to add the claim. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion and mail a copy of the order to Giddings.
The detailed version
- Giddings v. Oanda Corp. · No. 1:21-cv-05251
- Vernon Broderick
- Apr. 13, 2022
Background
Warren Matthew Giddings moved for permission to add a claim under the Commodity Exchange Act, a federal law governing commodities markets, against all defendants. The proposed claim was directed at Oanda Corp., Max F. Brauer, and the United States. Giddings had already amended his pleadings twice. When permitting the second amended complaint, the court instructed him to include everything he wanted to change and warned that he was unlikely to receive another opportunity to amend.
Court’s analysis
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15, a court may deny leave to amend for reasons including repeated failure to fix deficiencies, undue delay, prejudice, or futility. An amendment is futile when the proposed claim could not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
The court held that the proposed Commodity Exchange Act claim was futile. It identified the required elements as: the defendant’s ability to influence market prices, the existence of an artificial price, the defendant’s causing that artificial price, and the defendant’s specific intent to cause it. The court found that Giddings alleged no facts supporting those elements in either his second amended complaint or his motion.
The court explained that Giddings’s allegations against Oanda Corp. concerned the alleged withholding or improper handling of his personal investment funds, not a scheme to manipulate markets generally. His allegations against Brauer and the United States concerned their alleged failure to respond to or investigate his complaints about Oanda Corp. The court also concluded that any Commodity Exchange Act claim would be barred by the statute’s two-year limitations period because Giddings alleged that the wrongful conduct had continued for approximately three years.
Disposition
The court denied Giddings’s motion for leave to add a claim. It directed the clerk to terminate the motion at docket entry 76 and mail a copy of the order to Giddings.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.