Interactive Brokers is being sued by a former customer due to the negligent design of its software. It’s claimed that this design flaw saw the automating liquidation of the positions in his account, which the client claims had cost him thousands of USD more than it should have. On the 24th of August, 2020, this customer had informed the District Court of Connecticut of a discovery dispute.

A Few Speed Bumps

Robert Scott Batchelar filed the notice of discovery dispute, and explained that the Court had ordered Interactive Brokers prior to producing the Source Code of its Auto-Liquidation Software. As a response, IB had produced only three of its six Source Code modules, albeit three apparently complete ones. As such, the Plaintiff claims that IB is actively withholding three of its modules’ Source Code from the case.

IB, in return, has opted to refrain from denying that the Source Code that the Plaintiff had identified was missing from the production. Furthermore, it had no excuse for failing to produce the source code, nor did it provide the missing Source Code, in response.

All Data Needed

According to the experts, Batchelar consults, they advise that the missing Source Code needs to be examined in full. This will be done in order to confirm the initial opinions of the experts, as well as to identify specific instructions in the code for the Court. In particular, the instructions need to be identified that are the basis of the claims of the Plaintiff in this legislation, as well as those that are common to all class members’ liquidations. In regards to the class certification, these determinations are an integral part of the issue itself.

Suspicious Reluctance To Help

Alongside this, the parties within this case disagree regarding the remote access of the Source Code materials. By the letter itself, the Plaintiff had proposed secure, strict protocols for remote access to the Source Code documents. On top of this, the Plaintiff had invited IB to propose alternatives, as well. In response, IB sent a letter that responded with a resounding “No.” and had given no alternatives as proposals. As it stands now, Batchelar is convinced that IB is actively refusing any form of remote access to the source code in order to negatively affect his ability to develop the case against IB.

It remains to be seen what will happen next, but it’s clear that IB is making some highly suspicious moves. This, of course, could reflect poorly on them in the long run.