WASHINGTON, Oct. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — PredictIt traders, academic users and market technology pioneer Aristotle filed an injunction against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to allow continued trading on existing PredictIt markets, including this one the prosecution of the 2024 presidential election while the court considers overturning the CFTC’s orders to shut down those markets.

The action follows a legal action Filed September 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in response to CFTC action to force a winddown of the popular event prediction market, PredictIt.

“All we are asking in the motion for an injunction is that existing, lawfully issued contracts and contract markets continue to be allowed to trade while the court decides the broader issues in the case.” said David Mason, general counsel to Aristotle and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

“More than 14,000 individual traders hold positions in contracts related to the 2024 presidential election, which the CFTC has ordered closed until February 15, 2023. We believe it is unfair to these traders to be forced to liquidate their positions while the court reviews the legitimacy of the CFTC’s shutdown order.”

The preliminary injunction reads in part:

“Because the economic damage to market investors is caused by a federal government action, state immunity and other principles make recovering that damage later more difficult, making the damage irreparable. Accordingly, plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against the Commission’s ban. Markets that existed at the time of the Commission’s revocation decision must not continue trading until their natural conclusion.”

There are tens of thousands of PredictIt vendors with modest investments and quality research conducted by more than 200 academic research partners who rely on the use of the site’s anonymized data, not to mention the…