Federman & Sherwood has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Credit Suisse and Janus Index & Calculation Services on behalf of a class consisting of investors who invested on Credit Suisse VelocityShares Inverse Vix Short Term ETNs (NYSE:XIVH).

The complaint alleges violations of federal securities laws, during the class period, which is January 29, 2018 through February 5, 2018. The firm is seeking to recover damages on behalf of all investors who purchased the notes during the class period. This is the third class action lawsuit filed in the US against the Credit Suisse Group following two earlier filings this year by Gainey McKenna & Egleston and Milberg Tadler Phillips Grossman on behalf of purchasers of the VelocityShares Inverse Vix short-term ETNs.

In addition, Goldman Scarlato & Penny attorneys are also investigating alleged material misrepresentations in the prospectuses for XIV Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) offered by Credit Suisse and others. The law firm is targeting XIV ETN investors who would like to evaluate potential loss recovery options other than through a class action. According to a recent report by Securities Litigation and Consulting Group, the prospectus for Credit Suisse's XIV Short-Term ETN allegedly contained material misrepresentations which might have led to over $700m in investor losses.

The report also stated that the XIV ETN plummeted more than 97% and lost approximately US$2bn within hours in February 2018, and that following the selloff, the bank announced that it was redeeming all outstanding XIV ETN shares at the closing indicative value on February 15, 2018, the Report notes.

In addition, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm has commenced a class action on behalf of investors who held or traded S&P 500 option contracts, CBOE Volatility Index (Vix) option contracts (Vix Options), futures based on the Vix (Vix Futures), or Vix Exchange Traded Products (Vix ETPs) on exchanges run by Cboe Global Markets, and its affiliates from March 26, 2004 to the present in the case of Vix Futures and SPX Options; from February 24, 2006 to the present in the case of Vix Options; and from August 2008 to the present in the case of Vix ETPs.

The complaint alleges Cboe participated with others to manipulate the Vix "fear gauge" in a systematic manner during the 2004 to 2018 timeframe. This alleged improper manipulation caused economic damages to investors who traded in Vix futures, options and certain other Vix derivatives. As a consequence of these activities, the complaint alleges that exchange and a few of its preferred traders violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Commodity Exchange Act and the Sherman Act.

The complaint alleges that in February 2018, a whistleblower, who reportedly had held senior positions at some of the largest investment firms in the world, disclosed widespread manipulation of the Vix. After these disclosures were made public, one former regulatory official responded that the whistleblower's claim "rings true." Another former regulatory official reportedly explained it was "quite clear" that the Vix can be manipulated and that Cboe "should have sprung in to action" to bring any manipulation to a halt.

The complaint's forensic quantitative analysis corroborates the whistleblower's claim. It also corroborates academic work that was published in a prestigious, peer-reviewed academic journal in May 2017, raising questions about whether the Vix was being manipulated and suggesting various means of demonstrating that it was, in fact, manipulated.

Cboe allegedly conferred financial benefits and special trading privileges to a few traders who, in exchange for driving higher trading volume (and fees) for the exchange, enjoyed special privileges that allowed them to game the Vix and manipulate Vix derivative prices to the detriment of the Class. Cboe, in turn, benefitted financially from the manipulation as Vix products were its "flagship" products, which generated much of Cboe's revenues, as the complaint alleges.

The action was filed in the United States District Court for Northern District of Illinois and is captioned Bueno v. Cboe Global Markets, Inc., et al., No. 18-cv-02435.

There are over 800 structured products linked to the CBOE SPX Volatility index, of which 776 are still live products, according to SRP data: three of these are marketed by Barclays in the US and linked to S&P Vix indices, with two based on the S&P 500 Vix Mid-Term Futures Index ER and one the S&P 500 Vix Short-Term Futures Index ER, according to SRP data.

Click in the link to read the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group report.

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