United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

____________ FILED March 1, 2024 No. 24-50079 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk In re Kevin Clarke; Trevor Boeckmann; Harry Crane; Corwin Smidt; Aristotle International, Incorporated; Predict It, Incorporated; Michael Beeler; Mark Borghi; Richard Hanania; James D. Miller; Josiah Neeley; Grant Schneider; Wes Shepherd,

Petitioners. ______________________________

Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 1:22-CV-909 ______________________________ Before Smith, Southwick, and Wilson, Circuit Judges. Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge: Seeking a writ of mandamus, petitioners challenge the district court’s decision to transfer their suit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colum- bia (“D.D.C.”). They contend the district court plainly abused its discretion in its balancing of the public and private interest factors governing transfer. Having reviewed the parties’ submissions, as well as the district Case: 24-50079 Document: 51-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/01/2024

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court’s thoughtful and courteous supplemental response,1 we agree with petitioners. In essence, the district court transferred petitioners’ case to D.D.C. because of court congestion. That is a clear abuse of discretion, for which petitioners have no other remedy, with sweeping implications for this circuit’s § 1404(a) transfer standards. Accordingly, we grant the petition and direct the district court to request that the case be returned to the court à quo.

I. PredictIt is an online platform run by the Victoria University of Wel- lington in New Zealand. Conceived as a data-gathering tool for academic researchers, the platform allows individuals to trade on the predicted out- comes of political events. Users of PredictIt make small investments based on predicting political events, such as future elections or the passage of fed- eral legislation. Data gathered from those transactions is shared with aca- demic researchers. PredictIt began operating in 2014, after the CFTC Division of Market Oversight (“DMO”) issued PredictIt’s operator, Victoria University, a “no- action” letter. That letter stated that DMO would “not recommend that the Commission take any enforcement action,” subject to Victoria University’s representations to abide by certain terms and limitations relating to the oper- ation of PredictIt. In August 2022, DMO rescinded the 2014 no-action letter, stating that Victoria University had failed to operate PredictIt in compliance with the terms of the 2014 no-action letter. DMO therefore directed that

_____________________ 1 We invited the district judge to respond to the mandamus petition. In that re- sponse, he stated his plan to hold future “order[s] to transfer venue for a short period in the event a party wishes to challenge the transfer.” That future course of action is especi- ally deserving of commendation.

2 Case: 24-50079 Document: 51-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/01/2024

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“rem