SEC v. John Brda and Georgios Palikaras (engineered short squeeze, 2024)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought an action against John Brda and Georgios Palikaras, alleging conduct this library classifies as engineered short squeeze. No monetary relief has been recorded at this stage; the matter is an allegation and remains unproven.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-26035
Date filed	2024-06-25
Court	U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Status	filed
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	John Brda (individual) ; Georgios Palikaras (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.13(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Engineered short squeeze

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on June 25, 2024 as release LR-26035. The respondents named are John Brda and Georgios Palikaras (2 individuals, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

This library tags the matter as engineered short squeeze, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

Non-monetary relief recorded: officer-and-director bar.

This matter is at the allegation stage. Nothing in the regulator's filing has been proven, and the respondents are entitled to the presumption that it has not been. This page will be updated if the matter is resolved, dismissed or withdrawn.

Checked on 2026-10-04: no outcome found on SEC pages or the court docket. The case was moved out of the Southern District of New York by an order of November 18, 2024 and continues in the Eastern District of Texas (4:24-cv-01048), where the docket shows motions to dismiss by Brda and Palikaras pending in late 2025 and a stay during a federal funding lapse; the last docket entry we could see is dated December 17, 2025. The SEC's June 2024 settlement with Meta Materials, Inc. is a separate administrative matter.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

Engineered short squeeze — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2024-06-25 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Action	Agency	Filed	Technique	Penalty	Status
SEC v. Meta Materials, Inc. ( and others (engineered short squeeze, 2024)	SEC	2024-06-25	Engineered Short Squeeze , Reverse Merger Schemes	$1m	settled

Record added September 10, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.