By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – Robinhood Markets on Thursday defeated an appeal by investors over the stock trading platform’s decision to restrict purchases of 13 “meme stocks” during a January 2021 frenzy that squeezed hedge funds.

Customers who owned stocks such as AMC Entertainment, the former Bed Bath & Beyond and GameStop claimed in the proposed class action that they lost money because Robinhood stopped them from buying more as social media-fueled trading drove prices skyward.

Other holders of the stocks also said they were harmed, because the restrictions eventually caused prices of their stocks to fall.

But in a 3-0 decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said Robinhood’s standard customer agreement specifically authorized the restrictions, and did not suggest that Robinhood would accept all trade orders.

The court also dismissed claims that Robinhood was negligent in failing to keep investors from losing money, or failed to ensure that its “mission critical systems” would work properly.

“When Robinhood restricted its customers’ ability to buy meme stocks, it took a sizable – and perhaps justifiable – hit in the court of public opinion,” Circuit Judge Britt Grant wrote. “But in this court, Robinhood is only accountable for specific legal duties.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Robinhood and its lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Thursday’s decision upheld a November 2021 ruling by Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga of the Miami federal court.

The meme stock frenzy has been fueled in part by investors using online forums such as Twitter and the subreddit WallStreet Bets.

It led to a “short squeeze” that caused big losses for hedge funds betting stock prices would fall, and what Robinhood called “outsized regulatory collateral calls” for the Menlo Park, California-based company and other brokers.

Robinhood is also being sued by investors who sold nine meme stocks at a loss in late January and early February 2021.

Shares of Robinhood were up 3 cents at $10.83 at midday on Thursday.

The case is In re January 2021 Short Squeeze Trading Litigation, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-10669.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

By Paul Lienert

(Reuters) – Ford Motor expects to incorporate more and better software into the trucks and vans in its highly profitable Ford Pro commercial vehicle business and grow revenues by $4,000-$5,000 per vehicle in the future, a top executive said on Thursday.

Navin Kumar, chief financial officer of Ford Pro, said the automaker would look to boost revenue with software- and data-driven fleet services, safety and security services, partial vehicle autonomy and insurance.

Kumar, speaking at a J.P. Morgan investor conference, did not give a percentage forecast for revenue or profit margin growth, but said Ford’s ability to deliver and profit from those services will be enhanced in the middle of this decade when the company introduces its next-generation electric commercial vehicles with a new digital “intelligence” platform.

That new platform will help Ford Pro meet some ambitious 2026 targets, he said, including doubling the percentage of connected vehicles to about 60% and tripling the percentage of vehicles with paid software to about 36%.

Ford Pro will continue to offer a full portfolio of combustion engine, hybrid electric and full electric vehicles, Kumar said.

Its second-generation EVs, including the successor to the F-150 Lightning pickup, will be more profitable, in terms of their ability to generation additional software and services revenue.

Kumar said the current F-150 Lightning was not “cost optimized,” but declined to say whether it was profitable.

He said Ford Pro expects to boost its commercial vehicle business in Europe with the arrival this fall of a new Transit Custom van and the introduction next year of electric versions of the Transit Courier and Transit Custom.

(This story has been corrected to change the timeline from 2026 to “in the future”, at Ford’s request, in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Luc Cohen and Chris Prentice

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.

The long-awaited rule is expected to require that real estate professionals such as title insurers report the identities of the beneficial owners of companies buying real estate in cash to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

FinCEN is slated to propose the rule sometime this month, according to its regulatory agenda, though the timeline could slip, said two people briefed on the developments. Anti-corruption advocates and lawmakers have been pushing for the rule, which will replace the current patchwork reporting system.

Criminals have for decades anonymously hidden ill-gotten gains in real estate, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in March, adding that as much as $2.3 billion was laundered through U.S. real estate between 2015 and 2020.

“That’s why FinCEN is taking this important step to put something officially on the books that would root out money laundering through the sector once and for all,” said Erica Hanichak, government affairs director of advocacy group the FACT Coalition.

Some advocates say FinCEN, which declined to comment on the timing of the proposal, has moved too slowly. Officials first said in 2021 that they planned to implement the rule.

FinCEN has been struggling to complete a related rule that would unmask shell company owners. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has pressed FinCEN to tighten up that proposal, according to an April public letter. That debate has slowed down FinCEN’s work on the real estate reporting rule, one of the sources said.

The American Land Title Association, which represents title insurers, says it welcomes the new rule but that FinCEN should delay it until the shell company rule is completed.

The proposed rule will be open to public and industry feedback.

PATCHWORK

While banks have long been required to understand the source of customer funds and report suspicious transactions, no such rules exist nationwide for the real estate industry.

Instead, FinCEN has operated real estate purchase disclosure rules, known as geographic targeting orders (GTOs), in just a handful of cities including New York, Miami and Los Angeles. The new rule is expected to effectively expand GTOs nationwide.

FinCEN implemented GTOs in 2016 after the New York Times revealed that nearly half of luxury real estate was bought by anonymous shell companies.

But the orders are easy to skirt by simply buying property outside the targeted areas, said Jodi Vittori, an expert on illicit finance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Transparency advocates pushing for a nationwide rule point to the example of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman who, according to prosecutors, used an anonymous shell company to channel illicit profit from a fraud scheme into the $26 million purchase of a 50,000-square-foot New Jersey mansion in December 2021.

Had Guo brought property across the Hudson River in Manhattan, it would have been subject to a GTO and likely flagged immediately to law enforcement.

Guo, a onetime business partner of former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

A FinCEN spokesperson said GTO reports provide valuable data.

Howard Master, a formal federal prosecutor, said law enforcement uses them to generate leads, but mainly to learn more about assets owned by individuals already under investigation.

“It’ll identify an asset that is beneficially owned by someone that you might not otherwise have known about,” said Master, now a partner at investigations firm Nardello & Co.

A 2020 report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, found that nearly 7% of GTO reports identified individuals or entities connected to ongoing FBI cases. But the same report highlighted concerns about the ability of FinCEN, which has complained of chronic underfunding, to police the program.

For the new rule to be effective, FinCEN will need more enforcement resources, said David Szakonyi, a political science professor at George Washington University.

“FinCEN needs more people and more computers to process the information.”

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Chris Prentice in New York; Editing by Amy Stevens, Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)