Judge Alvin W. Thompson of the Connecticut District Court has nixed a motion for a protective order by Interactive Brokers.
The motion sought to prevent the deposition of Thomas Peterffy, the Chairman of the Board and former Chief Executive Officer of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (“IBKR”).
Let’s recall that, in this lawsuit, Robert Scott Batchelar accuses Interactive Brokers, LLC of negligent design of its trading software, so that an automatic liquidation of the positions in his account cost him thousands of dollars more than it should have.
Let’s note that Batchelar commenced this lawsuit in December 2015 by filing a complaint asserting claims for breach of contract, negligence, and commercially unreasonable liquidation of pledged collateral. Batchelar states that his current theory of liability is that Interactive Brokers’ Auto-Liquidation Software was negligently designed, coded, maintained and used such that it permitted a liquidation transaction to be executed on terms less favorable to the customer than the terms for that liquidation transaction authorized by the Auto-Liquidation Software.
Interactive Brokers has moved for a protective order precluding the deposition of Thomas Peterffy. On July 17, 2025, the Court denied the motion.
The Judge explained that, after reviewing the plaintiff’s response and the supporting documents, the court concluded that the plaintiff has made an adequate showing that the requirements for an apex deposition are satisfied.
“Depositions of senior executives are permissible when such senior executives have had direct involvement in the underlying claims, or if the subordinates are unable to testify in a meaningful fashion at their depositions.”
Because the deposition was originally noticed for July 9, 2025, the parties will have to proceed promptly with the deposition.
