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by Mike Caswell

Federal prosecutors in California are seeking a $16.2-million forfeiture order for Andrew Left, the U.S. short-seller convicted for a scheme to manipulate Canadian and U.S. listings. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Prosecutors say that the figure represents a conservative measure of Mr. Left's gains from his scheme. Ordering him to pay out the money is "necessary and appropriate," as it represents the proceeds of his crime, the government says.

The request from prosecutors comes as part of a case in which they claimed that Mr. Left used his investment publication, Citron Research, to generate profits in what amounted to a "garden-variety pump-and-dump scheme." The stocks that he targeted included TSX Venture Exchange listings Cronos Group Inc. and Namaste Technologies Inc. A jury convicted Mr. Left on June 1, 2026, after a 15-day trial.

Mr. Left has not yet been sentenced, and prosecutors have yet to say what they will seek as far as a jail term is concerned. Their present request, set out in an application filed on Monday, Nov. 9, deals solely with the amount of money they are seeking from Mr. Left. While they previously claimed that he generated $20-million in gains from his scheme, they say that a conservative accounting results in the $16.2-million figure.

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