Short seller Andrew Left seeks to dismiss U.S. fraud case, filing shows

Prominent short seller Andrew Left is pressing a judge to dismiss U.S. charges that he manipulated the market and defrauded investors with his negative reports about companies, according to a document filed in federal court on Monday.

U.S. authorities charged Left, the founder of Citron Capital, in July, alleging he had for years made misleading claims about his positions in multiple stocks, including Nvidia and Tesla. The case was the culmination of a years-long probe by the Justice Department into short sellers’ trading activities.

In a motion to dismiss the charges filed in federal court in California on Monday, Left’s lawyer said prosecutors’ claims relate to the trader’s opinions and the government failed to prove Left did not believe them. The information at issue was also not material to investors and Left had no responsibility to disclose it, the filing said.

“Concealing economic information necessary for others to make discretionary economic decisions is not fraud,” Left’s lawyer James Spertus said in the filing.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which filed the charges, could not be reached immediately for request for comment.