@annvandersteel mercenary research shops like Viceroy have found to strike PROFIT SHARING deals on top of retainers with Hedgefunds, many are larger than Anson. The list is endless. Consider Medical Properties Trust (NYSE: $MPT ), a company and heavily contested stock we have tracked since December 2022 (formerly trading as MPW). Follow the economic incentive: In 2023, MPT sued Viceroy Research. A January 2024 discovery opinion describes a disclosed arrangement under which UK-based Cheyne Capital paid a $30,000 monthly research retainer and Viceroy had a right to share in any profits Cheyne made from short sales of MPT securities (pp. 5–10).. The judge permitted MPT to seek Cheyne’s records through a Hague Convention letter of request. cases.justia.com/federal/dis… Research firms get away with this behaviour because they structure their research deals typically outside US jurisdiction to make enforcement harder. MPT asked a U.S. court for a Hague Convention letter of request to seek evidence from a UK entity. The court granted the request; the opinion does not say the UK produced the records…. did they? … I found no public record confirming that Cheyne UK produced the requested records… In fact on July 31, 2024, a New York judge recorded that MPT had sent Cheyne UK a demand based on the signed letter of request…Cheyne UK refused. The judge said that, to the court’s knowledge at that time, MPT had not yet commenced the UK process to obtain a response. MPT had also subpoenaed Cheyne’s U.S. affiliate, but that subpoena was quashed because MPT had not shown the affiliate possessed or controlled the UK records. As of today, September 27, 2026, the MPT–Viceroy lawsuit is over. MPT announced on December 18, 2024 that it and Viceroy had settled and agreed to dismiss the case. The settlement terms are confidential. The +$10 billion lost value and productivity may never recover…The court docket records a joint dismissal with prejudice, meaning that lawsuit cannot be brought again on the same claims. Then there was this South African case where Viceroy tried to take down a bank and the docs in this case show $10k/month retainer and 12.5% of net profit share: moneyweb.co.za/news/companie… The lesson is disclosure: when research can move a market, investors deserve to know who funded it, who received it early, and how the publisher stood to benefit… now imagine…what happens if such a report was authored word for word by the hedge fund’s own analyst… then given to the activist research firm and paid them to publish it as if it was theirs… In a separate matter, the SEC settled administrative charges involving Anson advisers and disclosures concerning their relationships with activist short publishers... The SEC’s order describes more than $1.1 million in profit-sharing payments routed through a third-party intermediary and associated with invoices for research that the intermediary allegedly did not perform. The advisers (naturally) settled without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings. Source: sec.gov/enforcement-litigati… The unresolved policy question is whether issuers and investors receive sufficient, timely information about these relationships when related reports are published. You can draw your own conclusions…